ACCORDING 
TO   PLATO 


.FRANKFORT 


/. 


^According! 
to 

I        Plato 


$£.  BY 

)i&  F.  FRANKFORT  MOORE 

S*\       Author  of  "The  Jessamy  Bride," 
)S*  « '  Phyllis  of  Phillistia, "  "  The 

^  Fatal  Gift,"  et  cetera. 

¥ 


^ 


Dodd,  Mead  ^Company 


Copyright,  1900 

by 
DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


CHAPTER  I 

"  No  one  who  has  not  been  bankrupt  at  least  twice 
could  afford  to  be  so  careful  about  his  dress  as  Mr. 
Richmond  is,"  said  Josephine. 

"  He  admits  a  solitary  bankruptcy,"  said  Amber. 
"  Bankruptcy  is  the  official  recognition  of  genius." 

"  It  certainly  is  the  shortest  way  to  distinction," 
said  Josephine.  "  Bankruptcy's  a  sort  of  English 
Legion  of  Honour,  isn't  it? — a  kind  of  bourgeois 
decoration." 

"  To  genius,"  said  Amber,  with  the  nod  of  one 
who  completes  a  quotation  that  some  one  else  has 
begun.  "  Mr.  Richmond  is  really  very  clever." 

"  Now  you  contradict  yourself — a  moment  ago  you 
said  he  was  a  genius — and  being  a  genius  is  just  the 
opposite  to  being  clever,"  laughed  Josephine.  "  Is 
this  your  syllogism :  Geniuses  become  bankrupt, 
Mr.  Richmond  becomes  bankrupt,  therefore  he  is  a 
genius  ?  " 

"  Well,  that  wasn't  quite  what  was  in  my  mind. 
I  suppose  that  to  have  the  Homeric  attribute  of 
nodding  scarcely  makes  one  a  Homer  ?  " 

"  If  it  did  there  would  be  no  need  for  people  to 
learn  Greek.  But  you  must  forgive  me  for  distrust- 

I 


2229038 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


ing  your  Mr.  Richmond — no,  I  shouldn't  make  use 
of  so  strong  a  word — I  don't  distrust  him.  What  1 
mean  to  say  is  that  I  am  rarely  convinced  by  a  man 
who  is  so  scrupulous  about  his  coats.  Genius — in 
man — is  rarely  found  in  association  with  silk  linings 
where  silk  linings  are  not  imperative." 

"  Now  you  are  becoming  commonplace,  my  dear 
Joe ;  you  give  one  the  idea  that  you  cannot  imagine 
genius  without  a  darn.  A  darn — maybe  a  patch — 
and  a  soft  hat  have  floated  many  a  mediocrity  upon 
the  public  under  the  name  of  a  genius.  But  brains 
can  work  just  as  actively  within  the  drum  of  a  silk 
hat  as  within  the  bowl  of  a  bowler." 

"Just  as  a  true  heart  may  beat  beneath  a  silk  lining 
as  fervently  as  under  a  moleskin  waistcoat.  Well, 
I'll  approach  Mr.  Richmond  with  an  open  mind. 
After  all  it's  only  a  universal  genius  who  is  a  man 
that  has  failed  in  everything;  and  no  man  has  yet 
hinted  that  Mr.  Richmond  is  a  universal  genius.  By 
the  way,  I  heard  of  an  adroit  Irishman  who  got  a 
great  name  as  a  poet  solely  by  reason  of  his  wearing 
an  old  cloak  and  turning  up  at  awkward  hours  for 
dinner." 

"  Mr.  Richmond  is — well,  perhaps  I  had  better  say, 
a  bit  of  a  genius." 

"  That  sounds  more  companionable.  I  like  the 
nodding  of  Homer — it  makes  him  more  human." 

"  If  you  wish  I'll  withdraw  the  genius  altogether 
and  merely  say  that  he  is  a  man  of  ideas." 

"  I    think   I  shall  like  him :    a  man  of  ideas  is  a 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


man  of  ideals.  I  am  nearly  sure  that  I  shall  like  him. 
There  must  be  something  good  about  a  man  who  can 
be  praised  by  his  friends  in  diminuendo." 

"In  diminuendo?  Oh,  I  understand:  yes,  I  began 
by  calling  him  a  man  of  genius  and  now  I  am  per- 
fectly satisfied  to  hear  you  say  that  you  think  you  will 
like  him.  Well,  that's  not  a  crescendo  of  praise  any- 
how. Oh,  really,  he's  not  half  a  bad  sort  of  man 
when  you  come  to  know  him." 

"  Now  you  are  becoming  crescendo,  my  Amber. 
One  only  says  of  the  best  men  what  you  have  said 
of  Mr.  Richmond.  I  know  that  it  represents  the 
flood-tide  of  one  man's  praise  of  another.  Person- 
ally I  don't  see  why  the  papers  should  have  made 
such  fun  of  Mr.  Richmond." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Joe,  that  wasn't  his  doing,  believe 
me.  Oh,  no ;  that  was  Willie  Bateman's  idea.  He's 
becoming  the  great  authority  on  advertising,  you 
know.  Yes,  he  said  that  you  can  ridicule  any  man 
into  success." 

"  I  fancy  he's  not  far  wrong  in  that.  You  remem- 
ber the  horrid  man  who  got  on — for  a  time — by  pre- 
tending that  he  was  the  original  of  one  of  Mr.  du 
Maurier's  pictures  in  Punch  ?  " 

"  I  have  heard  of  him.  He  was  a  sort  of  painter, 
only  he  had  a  habit  of  dabbing  in  the  eyes  outside  the 
face.  Mr.  Richmond  is  not  an  impostor,  however; 
he  is  only  a  theorist." 

"  Now  you  are  hair-splitting,  Amber,  the  Sophist." 

Amber    frowned    and    then    laughed — freely — gra- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


ciously — not  the  laugh  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira  his 
wife,  who  kept  back  part  of  their  possessions. 

"  Well,  I  admit  that — no,  I  admit  nothing.  I  say 
that  Mr.  Richmond  deserves  to  succeed  on  his  own 
merits,  and  that  he  would  succeed  even  without  being 
ridiculed  in  the  papers.  His  theories  are  thoroughly 
scientific — papa  admits  so  much." 

"  He  not  only  admits  the  theorist  but  the  theories 
as  well,  into  his  house.  And  yet  Sir  Creighton  is  a 
practical  man." 

"  And  a  scientific  man.  It  is  because  Mr.  Rich- 
mond works  on  such  a  scientific  basis  and  in  such  a 
practical  manner  we  are  so  anxious  to  do  all  we  can 
for  him.  Why  shouldn't  there  be  a  Technical  Col- 
lege of  Literature  as  well  as  one  of  Wool-combing, 
or  one  of  Dyeing,  or  one  of  Turning  ?  " 

"  Why  shouldn't  there  be  one  ?  You  have  reason 
and  analogy  on  your  side.  I  suppose  it  needs  quite 
as  much  skill  to  turn  a  Sonnet  as  to  turn  a  Sofa-leg, 
and  yet  it  is  thought  necessary  to  serve  an  apprentice- 
ship to  the  one  industry  and  not  to  the  other." 

"That's  exactly  what  I  say — exactly  what  Mr. 
Richmond  says.  He  once  edited  a  magazine,  and  he 
would  have  made  it  pay  too,  if  the  people  who  wrote 
for  him  had  been  able  to  write.  But  they  didn't. 
It  was  reading  the  fearful  stuff  he  used  to  get  by 
every  post  that  caused  him  to  think  of  the  great  need 
there  was  for  a  Technical  School  of  Literature. 
Now,  suppose  you  want  to  write  a  History  of  any 
period,  how  would  you  set  about  it  ?  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


"  I  haven't  the  remotest  idea  of  writing  a  history  of 
even  the  remotest  period,  Amber." 

"  Yes,  that's  because  you  are  unfortunate  enough  to 
be  the  daughter  of  so  wealthy  a  man  as  Mr.  West, 
the  Under  Secretary  for  the  Arbitration  Department. 
You  have  no  need  to  do  anything  for  a  living — to  do 
anything  to  distinguish  yourself  in  the  world.  But 
take  the  case  that  you  were  dependent  upon  writing 
histories  of  certain  periods  for  your  daily  bread, 
wouldn't  you  like  to  have  some  place  to  go  in  order 
to  learn  the  technicalities  of  history-writing  ?  " 

"  There's  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  I  would.  The 
writing  of  histories  of  periods  has  long  ago  been  placed 
among  the  great  industries  of  the  country,  I  know." 

"  I  was  appalled  the  other  day  when  I  began  to 
think  how  utterly  at  sea  I  should  be  if  I  had  to  write 
a  history,  or  for  that  matter,  a  biography  ;  and  history 
and  biography,  mind  you,  are  the  branches  that  do 
not  need  any  imagination  for  their  working  up." 

"  Oh,  do  they  not  ?  " 

"  Well,  of  course — but  I  mean  that  if  one  has  to 
write  a  play " 

"What,  is  there  a  play  department  too?  What 
on  earth  have  plays  got  to  do  with  literature  ?  " 

"The  connection  just  now  is  faint  enough,  I  ad- 
mit. And  why  ? — why,  I  ask  ?  " 

"  Let  me  guess.  Is  it  because  up  to  the  present 
there  has  not  been  a  Technical  School  of  Literature  ? " 

"  Of  course  it  is.  But  at  one  time  plays  formed  a 
very  important  part  of  the  literature  of  the  day." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


"  Undoubtedly.  The  author  of  Shakespeare's  plays, 
whoever  he  was,  was  certainly  a  literary  man.  I 
wonder,  by  the  way,  if  there  was  a  Technical  School 
in  his  time." 

"  There  wasn't.  That's  how  it  comes  that  he 
knew  so  little  about  the  technicalities  of  the  modern 
stage.  Take  my  word  for  it,  Josephine,  Mr.  Rich- 
mond will  prevent  the  possibility  of  a  recurrence  of 
such  mistakes  as  those  Shakespeare  made.  And  then 
there  are  the  departments  of  fiction  and  poetry. 
Could  anything  be  worse  than  the  attempts  at  fiction 
and  poetry  which  one  meets  nowadays  ?  " 

"  Impossible,  I  admit." 

"  The  poor  things  who  make  those  poor  attempts 
are  really  not  to  be  blamed.  If  they  were  set  down 
to  make  a  pair  of  boots  should  any  one  blame  them  if 
they  failed  ?  Now  I  hear  it  said  that  there  is  no  mar- 
ket for  poetry  in  these  days.  I  don't  believe  it." 

"  I  believe  that  if  a  paper  pattern  were  to  be  given 
away  with  every  volume  the  public  would  buy  as 
many  volumes  of  poetry  as  could  be  printed,  if  only 
the  patterns  were  of  a  high  class." 

"The  public  would  buy  poetry  if  a  first-class  ar- 
ticle were  offered  to  them,  but  as  only  one  first-class 
volume  appears  for  every  five  hundred  of  a  second- 
class  or  a  third-class  or  no  class  at  all,  the  public  are 
content  to  go  mad  over  the  merest  doggerel,  provided 
it  is  technically  good  doggerel." 

"  Mr.  Richmond  will  guarantee  that  his  third  year 
pupils  will  turn  out  good  doggerel,  I'm  sure.  And 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


what  department  do  you  mean  to  graduate  in,  my 
Amber  ?  " 

Amber  paused  before  replying.  A  line — a  delicate 
little  crayon  line — appeared  across  her  forehead,  sug- 
gesting earnest  thought  as  she  said  : 

"  I  have  a  great  hope  to  graduate  in  every  depart- 
ment. But  I  think  for  the  present  I  shall  confine 
myself  to  the  4  Answers  to  Correspondents.' ' 

"  Oh,  the  school  is  actually  so  technical  as  that  ?  " 
cried  Josephine. 

"  It  is  nothing  if  not  practical,  Joe ;  and  I  think 
you  will  agree  with  Mr.  Richmond  that  there's  no 
branch  of  magazine  literature  that  requires  to  be  more 
practical  than  the  4  Answers  to  Correspondents.'  The 
1  Aunt  Dorothy  '  branch  is  also  one  that  demands  con- 
siderable technical  skill  to  be  exercised  if  it  is  to  be 
done  properly.  Mr.  Richmond  thinks  I  might  begin 
upon  the  Aunt  Dorothy  branch  and  work  my  way  up 
to  the  true  Petrarchian  Sonnet  Department,  through 
the  Rondel,  Rondeau,  Vilanelle,  and  Triolet  classes." 

"  It's  a  far  cry  from  Aunt  Dorothy  to  Petrarch.  And 
pray  what  does  Mr.  Galmyn  think  of  the  scheme?" 

"  He  wasn't  very  enthusiastic  at  first,  but  I  fancy 
that  I  have  persuaded  him  to  look  at  it  in  its  true 
light.  But  you  see,  being  a  poet,  he  is  hardly  open 
to  reason." 

"  That  is  what  it  is  to  be  a  poet.  A  poet  does  not 
reason  :  he  sings.  And  has  Mr.  Overton  any  ideas 
on  the  subject :  he  cannot  be  accused  of  singing." 

"  He  has  an  open  mind,  he  says." 


8  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  Oh,  a  man  with  an  open  mind  is  just  as  disa- 
greeable as  a  man  without  prejudices.  And  Willie 
Bateman — ah,  I  forgot;  you  said  that  he  had  had 
something  to  do  with  pushing  the  school." 

"  Yes ;  he  took  care  that  the  scheme  was  properly 
ridiculed  in  the  papers.  Oh,  yes ;  he  has  been  ex- 
tremely useful  to  us." 

"  What,  you  have  actually  come  to  talk  of  the  school 
as  cus'  ?  I  had  no  idea  that  you  meant  to  hang  up 
the  scalp  of  this  Mr.  Richmond  in  your  wigwam." 

"  I  do  not  even  want  his  scalpet,  Josephine ;  at  the 
same  time  .  .  ." 

"  I  see.  You  don't  want  his  scalp,  but  if  he  in- 
sists on  sending  you  a  tuft  of  his  hair,  you  will  not  re- 
turn it  to  him." 

"Well,  perhaps  that  is  what  is  in  my  mind. 
Though  really  I  am  sincerely  anxious  to  see  what 
will  come  of  so  daring,  and  at  the  same  time,  so 
scientific  an  experiment." 

"  You  are  a  child  of  science,  and  to  be  a  child  of 
science  is  to  be  the  parent  of  experiments.  It  was  a 
child  of  science  who  modelled  toys  in  dynamite,  was 
it  not  ?  Pretty  little  clay  pigs  and  elephants  and 
poets  and  millionaires,  but  one  day  she  thought  she 
would  try  the  experiment  of  putting  a  light  to  the 
cigar  that  she  had  struck  into  the  mouth  of  the  dyna- 
mite figure  that  she  was  playing  with." 

"  And  what  happened  ?  " 

"  Let  me  think.  Oh,  nothing  happened  because  a 
live  man  appeared  on  the  scene  and  quickly  dropped 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


all  the  little  toys  of  the  scientific  little  girl  into  a 
bucket  of  water." 

"  And  then  ?  " 

"Well,  then  the  scientific  little  girl  cried  for  a 
while  but  when  she  grew  up  she  married  the  live  little 
man  and  they  lived  happily  ever  after." 

Amber  was  blushing  like  a  peony  before  her  friend 
had  finished  her  parable.  When  Josephine  had  begun 
to  speak  Amber  was  beginning  to  fold  her  serviette, 
and  now  she  continued  folding  it  as  if  she  were  en- 
deavouring to  carry  out  one  of  the  laborious  designs 
of  napkin  folding  given  in  the  Lady's  columns  of 
some  weekly  paper.  Suddenly,  while  her  friend 
watched  her,  she  pulled  the  damask  square  out  of  its 
many  folds  and  tossed  its  crumpled  remains  on  the 
tablecloth. 

"  Psha  !  "  she  cried,  "there's  not  a  grain  of  dyna- 
mite among  all  my  little  boys." 

"  Is  there  not  ?  You  just  ask  your  father  to  give 
you  an  analysis  of  any  little  boy,  and  you'll  find  that 
the  result  will  be  something  like  this  :  " 

(She  wrote  with  her  chatelaine  pencil  on  the  back 
of  the  menu  card.) 


"  Self-esteem  8.00 1 

"  Curiosity  5.0x5 

"  Desire  to  cut  the  others 

OUt  12.00 

"  Explosive  matter  tem- 
porarily held  in 
solution  75-°° 


Analysis  of  the  father  to  the 


man. 


io  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

Amber  read  the  card  with  blushes  and  laughter. 

"  It's  very  good  fun,"  she  said.  "  And  there  is  my 
motor  at  the  door.  You  will  come  with  me  and  see 
how  things  are  managed  ?  " 

"Why  should  I  go?" 

"  Why  should  not  you  go  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I'll  go :  whatever  it  may  be  it  is  still  a 
topic." 

"  It  is  much  more  than  a  topic  :  it  is  a  revolution." 

u  Then  I  shall  go  if  only  to  see  it  revolve." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  two  girls  left  Sir  Creighton  Severn's  house  in 
Kensington  Palace  Gardens,  and  the  dainty  little 
motor  Victoria  made  its  way  eastwards  under  the 
skilful  guidance  of  a  young  coachman  engineer 
trained  by  Sir  Creighton  himself. 

Every  one  has  heard  of  Sir  Creighton  Severn,  the 
great  inventor.  A  large  number  of  people,  if  asked 
what  Sir  Creighton  had  invented,  would  reply  "  Elec- 
tricity," so  closely  has  his  name  become  associated 
with  the  development  of  this  power  and  its  adaptation 
to  the  various  necessities  of  modern  life. 

Some  time  ago  there  was  a  general  feeling  through- 
out the  country  that  he  had  gone  too  far  in  this  direc- 
tion. There  should  surely  be  a  limit,  people  said,  to 
the  many  humiliations  to  which  scientific  men  were 
subjecting  that  power  which  after  all  was  nothing  less 
than  lightning  made  captive,  and  under  that  name,  the 
most  imposing  attribute  of  great  Jove  himself.  It 
was  not  so  bad  to  ask  it  to  light  a  well-appointed 
drawing-room  or  to  annihilate  distance  when  applied 
to  the  end  of  a  few  thousand  miles  of  telegraph  cable 
— there  was  a  heroic  aspect  of  its  employment  in  such 
ways :  there  was  something  of  the  dignity  of  an  in- 
ternational treaty  in  the  relationship  existing  between 
civilisation  and  electricity  up  to  a  certain  point ;  but 
it  was  going  quite  too  far  to  set  it  to  cook  chump 

ii 


12  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

chops  for  the  servants'  dinner,  or  to  heat  the  irons  in 
the  laundry. 

People  began  to  feel  for  electricity,  just  as  they  did 
when  they  heard  the  story  of  King  Alfred  in  the 
swineherd's  cottage.  If  the  nations  had  ceased  to 
offer  oblations  to  the  leven  of  Jove  that  was  no 
reason  why  it  should  be  degraded  to  the  level  of  a 
very  scullion. 

But  when  Sir  Creighton,  after  inventing  the  electric 
kitchener,  and  the  electric  ironer,  brought  out  an 
electric  knife  cleaner,  an  electric  boot-black,  and  an 
electric  mouse  trap — nay,  when  he  destroyed  the  very 
black-beetles  in  the  kitchen  by  electricity,  people 
ceased  to  protest.  They  only  shook  their  heads  and 
said  no  good  could  come  of  such  things. 

Of  course,  these  adaptations  of  the  power  of  which 
Sir  Creighton  was  looked  upon  as  the  legitimate 
owner  in  succession  to  Jupiter  (deceased),  represented 
only  his  hours  of  relaxation.  They  were  the  gleanings, 
so  to  speak,  of  his  electric  harvest — the  heel-taps  of 
his  electric  banquet :  they  only  brought  him  in  about 
five  thousand  a  year  in  royalties.  The  really  great 
adaptations  for  which  he  was  responsible  filled  the 
world  with  admiration  and  his  own  pockets  with 
money.  He  had  lived  so  long  in  close  association 
with  electricity  that  he  had  come  to  know  every  little 
phase  of  its  nature  just  as  a  man — after  thirty  years 
or  so  of  married  life — comes  to  have  an  inkling  of  his 
wife's  character.  He  had  invented  the  electric  ship 
that  picked  up  broken  cables  at  sea  by  merely  passing 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  13 

over  where  they  were  laid.  He  had  invented  the  air 
purifier  which  instantly  destroyed  every  injurious  ele- 
ment in  the  atmosphere  of  large  manufacturing  towns, 
making  them  as  pleasant  to  live  in  as  London  itself. 
He  had  also  produced  a  fog  disperser;  but  he  was 
not  sufficiently  satisfied  with  its  operation  to  give  it 
to  the  public.  It  was  quite  equal  to  the  duty  of  giv- 
ing fresh  air  and  sunshine  to  his  own  house  and  gar- 
dens, at  times  when  people  outside  were  choking  with 
sulphur  and  knocking  their  heads  against  lamp  posts, 
but  this  was  not  enough  for  Sir  Creighton,  and  he 
withheld  his  discovery  until  he  should  have  so  per- 
fected it  as  to  make  it  applicable  to  the  widest  areas. 

He  had  sufficient  confidence  in  his  powers  and  in 
the  ductility  of  his  partner — he  had  long  ago  come  to 
allude  to  electricity  as  his  conjux  placens — to  feel  cer- 
tain that  in  the  course  of  a  year  or  two,  he  would  be 
in  a  position  to  clear  the  Atlantic  Ocean  of  fogs  and 
even  to  do  something  with  London  itself. 

But  there  was  another  discovery  which  Sir  Creigh- 
ton hoped  he  was  on  the  eve  of  perfecting — the  great- 
est of  all  the  long  list  already  standing  to  his  credit — 
this  was  the  Electric  Digester.  He  had  proved  to 
the  satisfaction  of  every  one  except  himself  the  possi- 
bility of  treating  not  only  flesh  meat  but  every  form 
of  diet  in  such  a  way  as  practically  to  obviate  the  ne- 
cessity for  it  to  undergo  the  various  tedious  processes 
of  digestion  before  it  became  assimilated  with  the 
system. 

He   had   early   in   life   become   impressed  with  the 


i4  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

need  of  making  a  departure  from  the  old-fashioned 
methods  of  preparing  food  for  human  consumption. 
In  the  early  days  of  man — he  put  the  date  roughly  at 
150000  B.  c.,  though  he  admitted  that  the  recent  dis- 
covery of  a  fossil  scorpion  in  the  Silurian  rocks  left 
him  about  a  million  years  to  come  and  go  upon — 
there  was  probably  no  need  for  an  Artificial  Diges- 
tive. The  early  man  had  plenty  of  exercise.  It  is 
quite  conceivable  that,  with  such  things  as  the  Mam- 
moth, the  Mastodon,  the  Pterodactyl  and  the  Ichthe- 
osaurus  roaming  about  with  empty  stomachs,  the  hu- 
man race  should  have  a  good  deal  of  exercise  (Scoffers 
said  that  the  human  race  was  properly  so  called). 
But  the  human  race  had  won  the  race,  and  had  then 
settled  down  for  a  period  of  well-earned  repose. 

This  was  all  very  well,  but  their  doing  so  had 
changed  the  most  important  of  the  conditions  under 
which  they  had  lived,  until,  as  civilisation  strength- 
ened the  human  digestion  had  weakened.  But  in- 
stead of  openly  acknowledging  this  fact  and  acting 
accordingly,  physicians  had  kept  trying  to  tinker  up 
the  obsolete  machinery  with,  naturally,  the  most  de- 
plorable results.  Instead  of  frankly  acknowledging 
that  man's  digestion  had  gone  the  way  of  the  tail,  the 
supplemental  stomach,  and  the  muscle  that  moved  the 
ears,  attempts  were  daily  made  to  stimulate  the  obso- 
lete processes  of  digestion,  but  the  result  was  not 
stimulating. 

Sir  Creighton  Severn,  however,  frankly  assumed 
that  man  had  got  rid  of  his  digestion  to  make  way  for 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  15 

his  civilisation,  and  set  about  the  task  of  accom- 
modating his  diet  to  his  altered  conditions  of  life. 

He  had  not  yet  succeeded  in  satisfying  himself  that 
his  invention  of  the  Electric  Digester  would  do  all 
that  he  meant  it  to  do ;  so,  in  spite  of  the  bitter  cry 
that  came  from  the  great  pie  regions  of  North  Amer- 
ica, imploring  him  to  help  them,  he  withheld  it  from 
the  world  for  the  present. 

Sir  Creighton  was  wise  enough  to  make  a  fool  of 
himself  every  now  and  again,  and  the  fools  said  in 
their  haste  that  his  daughter  was  the  agency  which  he 
usually  employed  for  effecting  his  purpose  in  this  di- 
rection. But  while  some  said  that  it  was  his  daughter 
who  made  a  fool  of  him  others  said  that  it  was  he 
who  made  a  fool  of  his  daughter. 

No  one  seemed  to  fancy  that  it  was  quite  possible 
for  both  statements  to  be  correct. 

However  this  may  be  it  may  at  once  be  said  that 
Sir  Creighton  treated  his  daughter  as  if  she  were  a 
rational  person,  capable  of  thinking  for  herself  and  of 
pronouncing  a  moderately  accurate  judgment  of  such 
minor  problems  of  life  as  were  suggested  to  her. 
Without  knowing  why — though  her  father  could  have 
told  her  all  about  it — she  was  most  pleased  when  she 
was  trying  certain  experiments — not  in  electricity, 
but  in  sociology. 

And  yet  people  said,  simply  because  they  saw  that 
she  was  invariably  well  dressed,  that  she  had  no  scien- 
tific tendencies. 

She  had  a  certain  indefinite  beauty  of  her  own  that 


16  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

made  people — some  people  :  mostly  men — wonder 
where  they  had  seen  a  flower  like  her — a  lily,  they 
were  nearly  sure  it  was — or  perhaps  it  was  a  white 
clematis — the  one  with  the  star  centre  that  swung  so 
gracefully.  They  continued  looking  at  her  and 
thinking  of  flowers,  and  happy  is  the  girl  who  makes 
people  think  of  flowers  when  they  see  her ! 

Having  very  few  delusions  she  knew  that  there 
was  something  of  a  flower  about  her  nature.  And 
being  well  aware  that  flowers  are  the  most  practical 
things  in  Nature,  she  had  aspirations  as  boundless  as 
those  of  a  lily. 

That  was  why  she  was  delighted  when  she  at- 
tracted to  her  various  forms  of  idle  insect  life,  male 
and  female.  Her  aspirations  were  to  attract  rather 
than  to  retain,  for  she  had  the  lily's  instincts  as  well 
as  the  lily's  industry.  She  knew  that  when  youth 
made  a  bee-line  to  her  (speaking  in  a  phrase  of  the 
garden)  they  did  so  for  their  own  advantage.  And 
she  awaited  their  departure  with  interest,  knowing  as 
she  did  that  it  is  when  the  insect  leaves  the  lily  that 
the  latter  is  most  benefited ;  but  without  prejudice  to 
the  possibilities  of  the  insect  being  also  benefited. 
She  had  no  sympathy  with  the  insectivorous  plants 
of  womankind,  though  at  the  same  time  she  knew 
that  she  was  born  with  a  passion  for  experiments. 
She  hoped,  however,  that  her  curiosity  was  founded 
on  a  scientific  basis. 

She  had,  as  it  were,  taken  Love  into  her  father's 
laboratory,  and  with  his  assistance  subjected  it  to  the 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  17 

most  careful  analysis.  She  was  able  to  assign  to  it  a 
chemical  symbol,  and  so  she  fancied  that  she  knew 
all  there  was  to  be  known  about  love. 

She  knew  a  good  deal  less  about  it  than  does  the 
flower  of  the  lily  when  the  summer  is  at  its  height. 

And  now  this  offspring  of  the  most  modern  spirit 
of  investigation  and  the  most  ancient  femininity  that 
existed  before  the  scorpion  found  his  way  into  the 
Silurian  rocks  to  sting,  after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred 
thousand  years,  the  biologists  who  had  nailed  their 
faith  to  a  theory — this  blend  of  the  perfume  of  the 
lily  and  the  fumes  of  hydrochlorate  of  potassium,  was 
chatting  to  her  friend  Josephine  West  as  her  motor- 
victoria  threaded  its  silent  way  through  the  traffic  of 
Oxford  Street  to  that  region  where  Mr.  Richmond 
had  established  his  Technical  School  of  Literature. 

Josephine  West  was  the  daughter  of  the  right  hon- 
ourable Joseph  West,  Under  Secretary  of  State  for  the 
Department  of  Arbitration. 


CHAPTER  III  < 

THE  "forced  draught"  conversation — the  phrase 
was  Sir  Creighton's — which  the  two  girls  exchanged 
at  lunch  and  which  has  been  in  some  measure  re- 
corded, formed  excellent  exercise  for  their  wits,  Sir 
Creighton  thought,  though  he  had  not  the  privilege 
of  listening  to  their  latest  battledore  and  shuttlecock 
in  this  direction,  the  fact  being  that  he  and  Lady 
Severn  were  partaking  of  a  more  exciting  meal  aboard 
the  new  electric  turbine  yacht  which  Sir  Creighton 
had  just  perfected.  It  was  certainly  a  stimulating  re- 
flection that  for  the  first  time  since  the  waters  were 
spread  over  a  portion  of  the  surface  of  the  earth,  a 
meal  was  partaken  of  in  comfort  aboard  a  vessel 
moving  at  the  rate  of  forty-two  miles  an  hour.  Even 
the  conversation  of  the  two  girls  in  the  dining-room 
at  home  could  scarcely  beat  that  Sir  Creighton  re- 
marked to  his  wife  as  she  clutched  at  her  cap  on  the 
hurricane  deck  and  gasped.  (There  was  a  pretty  fair 
amount  of  cap  clutching  and  gasping  aboard  that  boat 
while  it  was  flying  over  the  measured  mile.) 

But  when  the  girls  were  being  motored  to  the 
Technical  School  of  Literature,  their  chat  was  of 
such  commonplaces  as  the  new  evening  dress  bodice 
with  the  lace  up  to  the  throat,  and  the  future  of  the 
Khaki  dresses  which  every  one  was  wearing  as  a 

18 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  19 

token  of  respect  to  the  Colonial  office.  They  had 
not  exhausted  the  latter  question  when  they  arrived 
at  the  school. 

It  was  located  in  an  interesting  house  in  Hanover 
Square  for  the  present,  Amber  explained  to  her  friend ; 
and  her  friend  cordially  opined  with  her  that  it  would 
be  foolish  to  enter  into  possession  of  an  important 
building  before  the  school  had  taken  a  sure  hold  upon 
the  affections  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain. 

Mr.  Richmond  was  just  opening  the  fiction  class 
in  the  largest  room  when  Miss  Severn  and  Miss  West 
entered.  Mr.  Richmond,  who  represented  the  latest 
of  Amber's  experiments,  had  met  Miss  West  a  few 
days  before.  He  knew  that  her  father  was  a  member 
of  the  Government  and  he  hoped  to  be  able  to  squeeze 
a  grant  out  of  the  Government  with  his  assistance, 
therefore — the  logic  was  Mr.  Richmond's  and  thor- 
oughly sound — he  thought  it  well  to  pay  as  little  at- 
tention as  was  consistent  with  good  manners  to  Miss 
West,  and  even  to  her  friend  and  his  friend,  Miss 
Severn.  He  had  a  pretty  fair  working  knowledge  of 
a  world  in  which  woman  has  at  all  times  played  a 
rather  prominent  part,  and  he  knew  that  while  some 
young  women  are  affected  by  flattery,  those  who  are 
most  potent  in  getting  grants  from  their  fathers  in 
favour  of  certain  enterprises  resent  being  singled  out 
for  attention. 

He  paid  no  attention  to  the  entrance  of  the  two 
girls,  but  commenced  his  lesson — he  refused  to  make 
use  of  the  commonplace  word  "  lecture  "  :  the  men- 


20  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

tion  of  such  a  word  should  be  enough  to  frighten 
people  away  from  the  school,  he  said ;  and  on  the 
same  principle  he  chose  to  call  his  undertaking  a 
school,  not  a  college. 

Josephine  and  Amber  took  seats  at  one  of  the 
desks,  with  paper  and  pens  in  front  of  them,  and  the 
former  glanced  round  the  class.  It  was  composed  of 
some  interesting  units.  At  a  desk  well  to  the  front 
sat  bolt  upright  a  gentleman  of  rather  more  than 
middle-age.  Half-pay  was  writ  large  all  over  him. 
There  was  not  a  wrinkle  in  his  coat  that  did  not 
harbour  a  little  imp  that  shrieked  out  "  half  pay — 
half  pay  !  "  for  all  the  world  to  hear.  His  hair  was 
thin  in  places,  but  at  no  place  was  it  too  thin  to  afford 
cover  to  half  a  dozen  of  those  frolicsome  demons  with 
their  shriek  of  "  half  pay  !  "  His  over-brushed  frock 
coat  (of  the  year  before  last),  his  over-blackened 
boots,  and  the  general  air  of  over-tidiness  that  he 
carried  about  with  him  proclaimed  the  elderly  officer 
of  correct  habits  who  after  trying  for  a  year  or  two 
to  obtain  congenial  employment  as  the  secretary  to  a 
club  and  for  another  year  or  two  to  persuade  people 
to  drink  the  wines  of  Patagonia,  for  the  sale  of  which 
he  had  been  appointed  sole  agent  for  Primrose  Hill, 
had  resolved  to  commence  life  again  as  a  popular 
novelist. 

Not  far  off  sat  a  youth  with  receding  forehead  and 
chin,  and  a  face  like  a  marmot  of  the  Alps.  He  kept 
his  small  eyes  fixed  upon  the  head  of  a  drowsily  pretty 
girl,  with  towzled  hair  of  an  orange  tint  unknown  to 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  21 

nature  but  well  known  to  art — the  art  of  the  second 
class  coiffure.  She  did  the  reviews  for  a  humble  paper 
but  hoped  to  qualify  to  be  herself  the  reviewed  one 
some  day.  It  was  clear  that  she  would  not  ruin  her 
chances  by  a  mesalliance  with  the  well-balanced  scheme 
of  retrocession  observable  in  his  profile. 

Two  interested  young  girls  sat  at  another  desk 
guardianed  by  a  governess — they,  at  any  rate,  Josephine 
thought,  possessed  the  first  qualification  for  success  in 
fiction,  for  they  observed  every  one  about  them,  and 
made  rude  remarks  to  each  other  respecting  their  fel- 
low-creatures. The  governess  took  notes  by  the  aid 
of  a  stumpy  pencil  the  blunt  end  of  which  she 
audibly  touched  with  the  tip  of  her  tongue  after  every 
few  words;  and  Josephine  perceived  that  she  was 
anaemic. 

Her  simple  methods  contrasted  with  the  elaborate 
batterle  d"ecriture  of  a  young  lady  who  sat  at  the  desk 
next  to  that  at  which  Josephine  and  Amber  had 
placed  themselves  ;  for  she  had  placed  in  front  of  her  a 
silver-mounted  case,  monstrously  monogrammed,  with 
double  ink-bottles,  each  containing  something  under 
half  a  pint.  A  rack  holding  half  a  dozen  pens  of 
varying  shapes  and  sizes,  stood  imposingly  at  one  side, 
and  on  the  other  lay  a  neat  ream  of  letter  paper, 
crested  and  monogrammed,  and  a  pronouncing 
dictionary.  The  apparatus  certainly  seemed  quite 
adequate  to  the  demands  of  the  occasion ;  and  as  it 
turned  out,  it  contained  a  good  deal  that  was  abso- 
lutely unnecessary,  for  the  young  lady  slipped  into  an 


22  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

unobtrusive  doze,  the  moment  the  lecturer  began  to 
address  his  class. 

A  young  woman  who  had  removed  her  hat  in  order 
to  show  that  she  had  a  brow  with  generous  bumps 
scattered  about  it,  resembling  Kopjes  above  a  kloof, 
lounged  with  an  ungracefulness  that  a  plebiscite  had 
pronounced  to  have  a  distinct  literary  flavour  about  it, 
half  across  her  desk.  It  was  understood  that  she  had 
once  written  a  column  in  a  lady's  paper  on  something 
and  so  could  afford  to  be  careless. 

A  youth  with  a  cloak  and  a  yellow  smile  was  un- 
derstood to  be  a  poet.  People  said  that  his  smile 
would  work  off.  But  he  had  never  tried. 

A  well-dressed  man  of  middle  age  looked,  Josephine 
thought,  as  if  he  were  something  in  the  city ;  but 
that  was  just  where  she  was  mistaken.  It  was  only 
when  he  was  out  of  the  city  that  he  was  something ; 
in  the  city  he  was  nothing.  He  was  on  the  eve  of 
drafting  a  prospectus ;  and  so  had  joined  the  fiction 
class  to  gain  the  necessary  finish. 

Two  or  three  younger  men  and  a  few  young 
women  who  seemed  to  have  come  straight  from  the 
hands  of  a  confectioner's  artist  in  frosting  and  almond 
icing,  had  taken  up  positions  of  prominence.  They 
looked  as  if  they  were  anxious  to  be  commented  on, 
and  they  were  commented  on. 

Mr.  Owen  Glendower  Richmond,  the  founder  of 
the  school  was  not  a  well-dressed  man,  only  an  ex- 
pensively dressed  man.  He  was  young  but  not  so 
very  young  as  to  be  able  to  disregard  the  tendency  to 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  23 

transparency  in  that  portion  of  his  hair  which  covered 
(indifferently)  the  crown  of  his  head.  He  had  the  art 
of  making  one  hair  do  duty  for  two  over  this  area. 

He  had  also  a  very  persuasive  voice. 

Many  men  have  gone  with  success  through  life 
with  fewer  endowments.  But  Mr.  Richmond  had 
never  been  quite  successful  in  anything  that  he  had  at- 
tempted, and  at  thirty-four  he  had  occasional  regrets 
that  earlier  in  life  he  had  not  let  his  hair  grow 
curiously,  or  acquired  a  reputation  for  a  profile — a 
profile  like  that  of  Dante  in  the  picture. 

He  had  published  a  book  or  two ;  but  people  about 
him  were  good-natured  and  had  agreed  to  ignore  the 
incident  and  to  give  him  another  chance.  He  proved 
that  their  benevolence  had  not  been  misplaced  by  be- 
coming bankrupt  over  a  scheme  for  regulating  the  out- 
put of  fiction.  The  public  had  subscribed  generously 
to  his  bureau,  and  it  might  possibly  have  succeeded 
but  for  the  discovery  of  the  new  element  to  which  the 
name  of  neurosis  was  given. 

Taking  advantage  of  his  position  on  the  summit  of 
a  base  of  bankruptcy,  he  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  a 
sufficient  number  of  friends  to  assist  him  in  the  reali- 
sation of  his  scheme  for  establishing  on  a  permanent 
basis  a  School  of  Literature ;  and  among  his  friends 
he  would  have  permission  to  include  Sir  Creighton 
Severn  and  his  daughter.  He  knew  that  their  ap- 
petite for  experiments  was  insatiable,  and  he  had  at 
one  time  taught  Archie  Severn — Amber's  only 
brother — all  that  he  knew  on  the  subject  of  exotic 


24  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

forms  of  verse — a  science  in  which  the  young  man 
had  been  greatly  interested  at  one  period  of  his  life. 
He  was  not  altogether  free  from  a  suspicion  that  his 
claims  upon  the  family  were  somewhat  attenuated  ; 
but  when  he  had  an  interview  with  them  he  felt  that 
such  a  suspicion  was  unworthy  of  him.  Sir  Creigh- 
ton  told  his  daughter  that  she  was  free  to  experiment 
with  the  experimenter,  and  Mr.  Richmond  found  that 
his  year's  rent  was  guaranteed. 

Although  the  school  had  only  been  established  for 
six  months  it  was  already  a  paying  concern  and  Mr. 
Richmond  was  in  such  prosperous  circumstances  that 
he  felt  at  liberty  to  dress  less  expensively,  so  he 
bought  a  frock  coat  at  seven  pounds  instead  of  the 
one  at  seven  guineas — the  one  which  Josephine  West 
had  first  seen  him  wear :  the  one  with  the  silk  quilted 
lining  where  most  men  were  quite  contented  to  have 
a  material  bearing  the  trade -name  of  satinette. 

It  was  the  cheaper  garment  that  he  was  wearing 
on  the  afternoon  of  this  first  visit  of  Josephine's  to 
the  school,  and  being  an  observant  young  woman, 
she  had  really  no  trouble  in  perceiving  that  his  aspira- 
tions for  the  moment  were  to  assume  that  pose  which 
offered  the  greatest  chance  of  permanency  to  the  im- 
pression that  he  carried  his  frock  coat  as  easily  as  a 
Greek  god  carried  his  drapery. 

She  was  a  very  observant  young  woman  and  she 
admired  the  adroitness  of  Mr.  Owen  Glendower 
Richmond  in  associating  himself,  even  though  he  did 
so  only  through  the  agency  of  a  crease  that  began  at 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  25 

the  waist  and  ended  short  of  the  knee,  with  classical 
tradition. 

And  then  she  admired  herself  for  the  subtlety  of 
her  observation,  and  thus  was  in  a  psychological  frame 
of  mind  to  yield  to  the  persuasive  charm  of  Mr. 
Richmond's  voice. 


CHAPTER  IV 

"  IT  has  been  suggested  to  the  Council,"  said  Mr. 
Richmond — the  name  Council  was  the  one  by  which 
he  desired  to  be  known  to  the  pupils  of  the  school 
upon  occasions — "  that,  as  the  Slum  Novel  is  that 
branch  of  fiction  by  which  it  is  easiest  to  make  a 
reputation  for  profound  thought,  at  the  least  expendi- 
ture of  thought,  I  should  deal  with  the  technicalities 
of  such  a  composition. 

"  I  think  the  suggestion  an  excellent  one,  and  I 
trust  that  I  shall  succeed  in  enabling  you  to  produce, 
after  a  little  practice,  such  a  book  as  will  certainly  be 
reviewed  to  the  extent  of  a  full  column  in  more  than 
one  of  the  leading  newspapers." 

There  was  a  general  movement  of  attention 
throughout  the  class  at  this  point.  The  lady  with 
the  two  ink  bottles,  who  lived  in  an  atmosphere 
strongly  impregnated  with  monograms  done  in  silver, 
carefully  chose  a  pen  from  her  rack. 

"  In  addition  to  the  novel  receiving  a  lengthy  re- 
view or  two,  it  may  even  sell,"  continued  Mr.  Rich- 
mond. "  But  if  it  should  not  sell,  the  writer  will,  in 
the  estimation  of  a  certain  circle — a  circle  which  I  do 
not  say  it  is  impossible  to  *  square  ' — I  speak  para- 
doxically— have  constituted  a  still  stronger  claim  to 
be  regarded  as  a  profound  thinker. 

"  Now  at  the  outset  I  ask  you  to  write  at  the  head 
26 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  27 

of  your  notes  the  word  l  Dulness.'  This  is  the  goal 
to  which  you  must  press  forward  in  the  Slum  Novel. 
You  must  be  dull  at  all  hazards.  No  matter  what 
you  have  to  sacrifice  to  produce  this  impression  you 
must  aim  at  being  dull.  Now  it  is  not  generally 
recognised  that  there  are  many  ways  of  being  dull. 
There  is  genial  dulness  and  there  is  jocular  dulness. 
There  is  dulness  of  diction  and  dulness  of  characteri- 
sation. There  is  dulness  of  morality  and  dulness  of 
criminality.  There  is  dulness  of  Socialism  and  dul- 
ness of  Suburbanism.  Now,  if  you  succeed  in  mak- 
ing a  blend  of  all  these  forms  of  dulness  you  will 
have  gone  far  in  making  a  successful  Slum  Novel. 

"  The  next  note  which  I  will  beg  of  you  to  make 
is  this :  '  The  Slum  Novel  must  neither  embody 
lessons  nor  suggest  Remedies.' 

"You  must  invent  your  characters,  add  if  you  will, 
a  plot,  but  the  latter  is  by  no  means  essential,  and 
then  you  must  get  up  your  topography.  Too  great 
emphasis  cannot  be  laid  upon  the  necessity  for  a 
minute  topographical  scheme — with  a  map,  if  possible. 
I  must  remind  you  that  a  map  in  a  work  of  fiction  im- 
parts to  it  an  aspect  of  dulness  which  even  the  most 
brilliant  writer  might  fail  to  achieve  in  a  dozen  pages. 

"  Next  in  importance  to  imaginary  topography  is 
imaginary  dialect.  I  will  ask  you  to  write  the  word 
Dialect  large  in  your  notes.  The  Argot  of  the  Slums 
cannot  be  made  too  unintelligible,  nor  can  its  incon- 
sistency be  over-emphasised.  An  excellent  recipe 
for  true  Cockney  is  to  mix  with  the  broadest  Lanca- 


28  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

shire  a  phrase  or  two  of  Norfolk,  a  word  or  two  of 
stage  Irish,  and  all  the  oaths  in  daily  use  in  the  min- 
ing districts.  The  result  will  be  pure  Cockney.  But 
you  must  be  very  careful  of  your  oaths.  Swearing  is 
to  a  Slum  Novel  what  vinegar  is  to  salad — what  the 
sulphur  tip  is  to  the  lucifer  match.  On  the  whole  I 
think  that  those  ladies  who  are  desirous  of  writing 
dialogue  that  can  scarcely  fail  to  receive  the  heartiest 
recognition  from  critics,  would  do  well  to  allow  no 
character  to  make  even  the  simplest  remark  without 
intruding  at  least  two  of  those  words  which  a  few 
years  ago  a  printer  would  refuse  to  print.  The  effect 
will  be  startling  at  first,  more  especially  if  the  coars- 
est words  are  put  into  the  mouths  of  women  and 
children  ;  but  you  must  remember  that  the  object  of  a 
Slum  Novel  is  to  startle  a  reader  without  interesting 
a  reader.  It  is  in  furtherance  of  this  aim  that  you 
must  so  disguise  the  everyday  words  spoken  by  your 
characters  as  to  make  them  quite  unintelligible  to  the 
most  adroit  of  readers.  If  the  least  clue  is  obtainable 
to  the  simplest  words  you  may  be  sure  that  there  is 
something  wrong  in  your  technique. 

"Now  I  come  to  the  important  element  known  as 
Cruelty.  Will  you  kindly  write  down  the  word 
Cruelty.  Respecting  the  technicalities  of  this  ele- 
ment a  good  deal  of  advice  might  be  given.  But  I 
shall  have  said  enough  on  this  point  to  give  you  a 
good  working  acquaintance  with  its  place  in  the  Slum 
Novel  when  I  assure  you  that  you  cannot  make  it  too 
revolting,  and  that  you  cannot  describe  the  details  of 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  29 

any  revolting  act  too  closely.  Your  blood  stains 
cannot  be  too  large  or  dark  or  damp — you  must  be 
careful  that  the  blood  stains  are  kept  damp. 

"The  entire  technique  of  the  plot  may  be  included 
in  this  precept :  Make  your  heroine  a  woman  with 
fists  like  those  of  a  man  and  let  her  be  murdered  by 
the  man  whom  she  loves  and  let  her  die  in  the  act  of 
assuring  the  policeman  that  she  did  it  herself.  Her 
last  words  must  be  *  S'elp  me  Gawd.'  This  is  under- 
stood to  be  genuine  pathos.  It  is  not  for  me  to  say 
that  it  is  otherwise.  When  I  shall  have  the  honour 
of  dealing  with  the  technicalities  of  pathos  you  may 
depend  on  my  not  neglecting  the  important  branch  of 
Slum  Pathos." 

Mr.  Owen  Glendower  Richmond  paused  and  took 
a  glass  of  water  with  the  air  of  a  connoisseur  of 
vintages.  He  seemed  to  trust  that  it  would  be  under- 
stood that  the  water  was  of  a  delicate  cru.  There 
was  another  distinct  movement  among  his  audience 
that  almost  suggested  relief.  There  were  whispers. 
It  seemed  to  be  understood  that  the  relaxing  of  the 
strain  put  upon  the  members  of  the  class  meant  a 
period  of  complete  repose. 

"  He  kept  it  up  wonderfully,  did  he  not  ?  "  re- 
marked Josephine. 

"  Kept  it  up  ?  "  cried  Amber,  assuming  the  wrinkle 
of  the  one  who  is  puzzled. 

"  Yes  ;  the  tennis  ball  of  satire  and  the  shuttlecock 
of  irony,"  said  Josephine.  "  Do  these  folks  take 
him  seriously  ?  " 


30  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"We  do,"  replied  Amber  with  a  touch  of  dignity. 
"  We  do.  He  will  prevent  a  good  many  of  us  from 
making  fools  of  ourselves." 

41  But  I  thought  that  you  had  only  reached  the 
Aunt  Dorothy  stage  of  machine-made  literature," 
said  Josephine.  "  Have  you  already  mastered  the 
technique  of  Aunt  Dorothy  ?  " 

"I  am  occasionally  allowed  to  join  the  higher 
fiction  class  as  a  treat,"  said  Amber.  "  You  see,  Mr. 
Overton  comes  to  this  class." 

"  I  see.  You  are  leading  him  to  higher  things  by 
the  primrose  path  of  technical  literature,"  said 
Josephine.  "  This  primrose  path  seems  to  me  to 
resemble  the  mule  track  through  the  valley  from 
Stalden  to  Saas  Fee.  -It  does  not  admit  of  much  in- 
dependence of  travelling." 

"  Hush  !  Mr.  Richmond  is  going  to  set  us  our 
home  exercise,"  said  Amber  as  the  teacher  gave  a 
little  tap  to  his  desk  with  the  stem  of  a  quill  pen, 
holding  it  by  the  feather  end.  The  sound  that  it 
made  was  curious  and  its  effect  was  electrical :  all 
faces  were  instantly  turned  toward  him. 

"  Last  week  I  made  you  acquainted  with  the 
technique  of  the  Historical  Novel,"  said  Mr.  Rich- 
mond, "and  I  am  naturally  anxious  to  learn  to  what 
extent  you  have  availed  yourselves  of  suggestions.  I 
will  therefore  offer  you  for  home  exercise  the  follow- 
ing problem  :  *  Given  Richelieu  and  a  dark  alley  in 
a  Seventeenth  Century  Continental  city,  with  a  cold 
damp  wind  blowing  through  it  when  the  hero  of  the 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  31 

story  takes  shelter  in  one  of  the  doorways,  describe 
the  fight  in  the  cellar  when  he  descends  on  hearing 
the  shrieks  of  a  girl  with  fair  hair  and  a  curious  cross 
set  with  pearls  and  sapphires  on  her  breast,  proceed- 
ing from  that  portion  of  the  building.' 

"  You  may  do  me  the  honour  to  recollect  that  I 
made  you  acquainted  with  the  technique  of  the  brawl 
of  the  historical  romance,  with  its  three  motives — 
Cardinal  Richelieu,  the  marked  pack  of  cards,  and 
the  girl  with  fair  hair  and  the  cross  with  pearls  and 
sapphires  on  her  breast.  You  are  at  perfect  liberty 
in  the  exercise  to  make  the  young  woman  either 
haughty  or  humble,  but  I  need  scarcely  remind  you,  I 
hope,  that  she  must  be  either  the  one  or  the  other  to 
an  extravagant  degree,  but  Richelieu  must  always  be 
old.  Now  I  will  read  out  the  terms  of  the  problem 
once  more :  '  Given  a  dark  alley — a  dark  alley  ' — 
have  you  got  that  down  ?  " 

Mr.  Richmond  repeated  slowly  with  praiseworthy 
distinctness,  the  terms  of  the  problem  and  the  mem- 
bers of  the  class  scratched  away  at  their  notes  with 
pencils  of  varying  shapes  and  sizes — all  except  the 
young  lady  with  the  big  silver  monograms  and  the 
blotter  inside  them  :  she  used  a  pen  which  she  dipped 
alternately  into  the  bottle  of  red  and  the  bottle  of 
black  ink,  such  is  the  absent-mindedness  of  author- 
ship even  in  the  jelly-fish  period  of  its  evolution. 

"  Is  it  possible  that  you  are  taking  it  all  down  ? " 
asked  Josephine  of  Amber. 

"  It  is  only  to  encourage  the  others,"  replied  Am- 


32  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

her.  "  If  Guy  Overton  did  not  see  me  taking  it  all 
down  he  wouldn't  write  a  line." 

"And  will  you  make  the  attempt  to  work  out  the 
problem  at  home  ? "  asked  Josephine. 

"  Perhaps  I  may  have  a  shot  at  it.  After  all  it's  no 
more  difficult  than  an  ordinary  equation  :  given  the 
hero,  the  cold  damp  wind  and  the  shrieks,  to  find  the 
girl — I  think  I  shall  make  her  simple,  not  haughty ; 
the  haughty  ones  are  a  little  boring,  are  they  not  ?  " 

"  And  now  we  shall  proceed  to  the  dialect  lesson," 
said  Mr.  Richmond.  "  Having  dealt  with  Somerset- 
shire during  the  past  week  I  will  now  offer  you  for 
translation  a  few  sentences  containing  the  funda- 
mental words  necessary  to  the  dialogue  of  the  Low- 
land Scotch  novel.  You  will  observe  that  these 
words  are  really  not  numerous.  But,  as  you  can  ring 
some  thousands  of  changes  upon  a  peal  of  eight  bells 
so  by  the  free  use  of  a  dozen  dialect  words  you  can 
impart  a  strong  local  colour  to  any  commonplace 
story.  Of  course  it  ceases  to  be  commonplace  when 
the  characters  speak  in  the  dialect  of  the  Lowlands." 

He  then  wrote  a  few  sentences  on  the  black  board 
embodying  such  words  as  "  muckle,"  "  mickle," 
"  hoot  awa',"  "  bonnie — bonnie — bonnie  " — "  you 
cannot  have  too  many  l  bonnies,'  "  he  remarked — 
u  wee "  in  its  direct  application,  and  "  wee  "  when 
combined  with  another  diminutive,  such  as  "  wee 
bit."  He  explained  the  significance  of  every  phrase 
and  pointed  out  how  directly  it  appealed  to  the  heart 
of  a  reader.  He  applied  a  critical  stethoscope,  as  it 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  33 

were,  to  every  phrase,  showing  the  strong  manly 
heart  of  a  sturdy  people  beating  through  such 
sentences  as  he  had  placed  before  his  class. 

"I  will  now,  with  your  permission,"  said  Mr. 
Richmond,  u  conclude  the  business  of  the  class  with 
a  time  study.  A  short  time  ago  I  brought  under  your 
notice  the  technicalities  of  the  novel  of  phrases. 
You  will,  I  hope,  recollect  that  I  laid  considerable 
emphasis  upon  the  effect  capable  of  being  produced 
by  a  startling  definition  of  something  that,  in  com- 
mon acceptation,  in  no  way  stands  in  need  of  being 
defined.  Now,  you  all  know  what  Platonic  Love 
means ;  well,  a  definition  or  a  series  of  definitions 
of  Platonic  Love,  will  form  the  ten  minutes  time 
study  for  to-day.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  Platonic 
Love — a  definition  for  the  purpose  of  the  Novel  of 
Phrases." 

There  was  nothing  like  a  smile  on  Mr.  Richmond's 
face  at  any  part  of  his  lecture.  He  treated  every 
technical  point  which  he  suggested  in  the  most  serious 
way.  He  handled  every  portion  of  the  subject  with 
the  freedom  and  the  gravity  of  a  surgeon  in  the  dis- 
secting room.  There  was  a  certain  frankness  in  his 
assumption  that  any  one  could  be  taught  how  to  make 
the  great  mass  of  the  people  smile  or  laugh  or  weep 
or  feel — that  the  production  of  certain  effects  in  prose 
was  as  entirely  a  matter  of  machinery  as  the  effects 
produced  by  the  man  at  the  throttle-valve  of  the  loco- 
motive when  he  jerks  the  piece  of  metal  with  the 
handle.  Some  people  might  have  called  this  frank- 


34  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

ness  cynicism  ;  but  Josephine  could  not  see  that  there 
was  anything  cynical  about  it. 

She  had  attended  for  some  years  a  life-class  at  the 
studio  of  a  painter  of  distinction  and  he  had  lectured 
to  his  pupils  on  the  technical  aspects  of  the  art  of 
painting,  referring  occasionally  to  what  he  called  the 
depth  of  feeling  in  certain  chromatic  combinations. 
He  had  also  showed  them  how  to  produce  the  effect 
of  tears  on  a  face,  by  making  a  little  smudge  on  the 
cheeks.  If  it  was  possible  to  teach  such  technicali- 
ties why  should  not  one  do  as  Mr.  Richmond  was 
doing,  and  teach  a  crowd  of  students  how  to  write  so 
as  to  draw  tears  or  compel  smiles  ? 

"  I  don't  think  that  I  will  trouble  myself  with  the 
time-study,"  said  Amber. 

Josephine  looked  at  her  and  gave  a  laugh. 

"  Platonic  affection,"  she  said  musingly.  "  I  won- 
der why  you  should  shirk  a  paper  on  that  question. 
You  are  supposed  to  be  an  exponent  of  that  virtue.  I 
should  like  to  know  what  Mr.  Guy  Overton  thinks 
about  it.  I  should  like  to  know  what  Mr.  Galmyn 
thinks  about  it.  The  definition  of  Mr.  Willie  Bate- 
man's  opinion  might  also  possess  some  element  of  in- 
terest." 

"  Write  down  what  you  think  of  it,"  cried  Amber, 
pushing  the  paper  towards  her. 

Josephine  shook  her  head  at  first,  smiling  gently. 
Then  she  made  a  sudden  grab  at  the  pencil  that  hung 
to  one  of  the  chains  of  her  chatelaine. 

"  I'll   define  Platonic  affection  for  you,  my  dear," 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  35 

she  whispered,  "  for  you — not  for   Mr.   Richmond  : 
he  needs  no  definition  of  that  or  anything  else." 

She  began  to  write  a  good  deal  more  rapidly  than 
the  others  in  the  class-room.  So  rapidly  did  she 
write  that  she  was  unable  to  see  how  great  was  the 
interest  in  Mr.  Richmond's  face  while  he  watched 
her  and  how  great  was  the  interest  in  the  face  of  a 
young  man  who  sat  at  the  most  distant  desk  while  he 
watched  Amber. 


CHAPTER  V 

"  PLATONIC  affection  is  the  penalty  which  one  pays 
in  old  age  for  procrastination  in  one's  youth.  It  is 
the  phrase  that  one  employs  to  restore  one's  self-re- 
spect when  suffering  from  the  watchful  care  of  a 
husband.  It  is  the  theory  of  a  Greek  Sophist  to  de- 
fine the  attitude  of  a  sculptor  in  regard  to  his  marble. 
It  defines  the  attitude  of  the  marble  in  regard  to  the 
sculptor.  It  was  the  attribute  of  Galatea  just  before  she 
began  to  live,  and  it  is  the  attitude  of  the  moralist  just  be- 
fore he  begins  to  die.  It  is  the  triumph  of  Logic  over 
Love.  It  is  the  consolation  of  the  man  who  is  content 
with  roses  cut  out  of  tissue  paper.  It  is  the  comfort 
of  the  woman  who  thinks  that  a  quill  and  a  glass  of 
water  make  an  entirely  satisfactory  substitute  for  a 
nightingale  in  June.  It  is  the  banquet  of  the  Barme- 
cides. It  is  the  epitaph  on  the  grave  of  manhood. 
It  is  the  slab  on  the  grave  of  womanhood.  It  is  the 
phrase  that  is  shrieked  out  every  hour  from  the 
cuckoo  clock.  It  is  an  ode  by  Sappho  written  in 
water.  It  is  the  egg-shell  that  is  treasured  by  a  man 
when  some  one  else  is  eating  the  omelette.  It  is  the 
affection  of  the  Doge  of  Venice  for  the  Adriatic.  It 
is  a  salad  without  vinegar.  It  is  the  shortest  way  to 
the  Divorce  Court.  It  is  a  perpetual  menace  to  a 
man  and  the  severest  threat  that  one  can  hold  over 

36 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  37 

the  head  of  a  woman.  It  is  a  lion  with  the  tooth- 
ache. It  is  the  Sword  of  Damocles.  It  is  Apollo  in 
pyjamas.  It  is  the  fence  upon  which  a  man  sits 
while  he  waits  to  see  which  way  the  cat  will  jump. 
It  is  a  song  the  words  of  which  have  been  lost  and 
the  music  mislaid.  It  is  entering  on  a  property  the 
title  deeds  of  which  are  in  the  possession  of  some 
one  else.  It  is  offering  a  woman  a  loaf  of  bread 
when  she  is  dying  of  thirst.  It  is  offering  a  man  a 
cup  of  water  when  he  is  dying  of  hunger.  It  is  the 
smoke  of  an  extinct  volcano.  It  is  the  purchase  price 
paid  by  a  fool  for  the  fee-simple  of  a  Castle  in  Spain. 
It  is  the  fraudulent  prospectus  of  a  bogus  company. 
It  is  the  only  thing  that  Nature  abhors  more  than  a 
vacuum.  It  is  the  triumph  of  the  Vacuum  over  Na- 
ture. It  is  the  last  refuge  of  the  roue.  It  is  present- 
ing a  diet  of  confectionery  for  carnivora.  It  is  the 
experiment  which  my  dear  friend  Amber  Severn  is 
trying  in  order  that  every  one  who  knows  her  may  be 
warned  in  time." 

She  folded  up  the  paper  carefully  and  handed  it  to 
Amber  saying : 

"There  is  not  only  a  definition  but  a  whole  treatise 
for  you,  my  dear  Amber.  It  is  for  you  alone,  how- 
ever, and  it  is  not  written  to  dissuade  you  from  your 
experiment." 

u  My  experiment  ?  What  is  my  experiment  ?  " 
cried  Amber. 

Josephine  looked  at  her  and  smiled  vaguely,  be- 
nevolently. 


38  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  The  experiment  of  feeding  carnivora  on  confec- 
tionery," said  she. 

"  You  mean  that — that Oh,  no ;  you  cannot 

say  that,  whatever  happens,  I  have  not  improved  them 
all." 

"  I  would  not  dare  even  to  think  so.  If,  however, 
you  succeed  in  convincing  any  two  of  them  that  you 
are  quite  right  in  marrying  the  third  you  will  have 
proved  conclusively  that  confectionery  is  a  most  satis- 
factory diet." 

"  I  don't  believe  that  any  one  of  the  three  wishes 
to  marry  me.  Not  one  of  them  has  even  so  much 
hinted  at  that.  Oh,  no ;  we  are  far  too  good  friends 
ever  to  become  lovers.  They  are  all  nice  and  are 
getting  nicer  every  day." 

"  I  really  think  that  they  are.  At  any  rate  you 
were  born  to  try  experiments.  You  can  no  more 
avoid  experimenting  than  your  father  can.  Here 
comes  an  elementary  principle  with  an  empty  note- 
book in  his  hand." 

A  youth  of  twenty-four  or  twenty-five  with  a  good 
figure  and  a  pleasantly  plain  face  and  unusually  large 
hands  and  feet  sauntered  up — the  members  of  the 
class  were  trooping  out,  some  of  them  handing  in 
their  time  studies  to  Mr.  Richmond  who  stood  at  the 
head  of  the  room. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Miss  West  ?  How  are  you, 
Amber?  "  he  said.  "I  saw  you  working  like  a  gas- 
engine,  Miss  West.  What  on  earth  could  you  find 
to  say  on  that  subject  ? " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  39 

"What  subject,  Mr.  Guy  Overton  ?"  said  Josephine. 

The  young  man  looked  puzzled — pleasantly  puz- 
zled. 

"  The  subject  you  were  writing  about,"  he  replied 
cautiously. 

"  You  don't  even  remember  the  title  of  the  time 
study,"  said  Amber  severely. 

"  I  don't,"  he  cried  defiantly.  "  What  would  be 
the  good  of  remembering  it  ?  I  saw  at  once  that  it 
was  all  Thomas." 

"  All  Thomas  ?  "  said  Amber  enquiringly. 

"  All  Thomas — all  Tommy  rot.  You  didn't 
bother  yourself  writing  a  big  heap  Injin  about  it 
yourself,  my  fine  lady." 

"  That  was  because  she  is  really  scientific  in  her 
methods,  Mr.  Overton,"  said  Josephine.  "  She 
doesn't  write  out  the  result  of  an  experiment  until  she 
has  analysed  the  residuum  in  the  crucible." 

The  young  man  looked  into  her  face  very  care- 
fully. He  was  never  quite  sure  of  this  particular 
girl.  She  required  a  lot  of  looking  at,  and  even  then 
he  was  never  quite  certain  that  she  had  not  said 
something  that  would  make  him  look  like  a  fool  if 
any  one  clever  enough  to  understand  her  was  at  hand. 
Luckily  for  him  there  were,  he  knew,  not  many  such 
people  likely  to  be  about. 

He  looked  at  her  very  carefully  and  then  turned  to 
Amber  saying : 

"  I  came  across  a  chippie  of  a  cornstalk  yesterday 
who  says  his  dad  used  to  know  Sir  Creighton  before 


40  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

he  went  to  Australia.  May  I  bring  him  with  me 
one  day  ? " 

"  Of  course  you  may,"  cried  Amber,  her  face 
brightening.  Josephine  knew  that  her  face  brightened 
at  the  prospect  of  acquiring  some  fresh  materials  for 
her  laboratory.  "  What  is  his  name  ?  " 

"  His  name  is  Winwood — Pierce  Winwood,  if  it 
so  please  you." 

"  I'll  ask  the  pater,  and  keep  him  up  to  the  date," 
said  Amber.  "  I  suppose  his  father's  name  was  Win- 
wood  too." 

"  Why  shouldn't  it  be  ?  Oh,  there's  nothing  the 
matter  with  him.  My  dad  used  to  know  his  dad  out 
there.  They  were  in  the  same  colony  and  pretty 
nearly  cleaned  it  out  between  them.  But  Winwood 
died  worth  a  good  bit  more  than  my  poor  old  dad. 
Oh,  he's  all  right." 

"  I'm  sure  you  have  said  enough  to  convince  any 
one  that  the  son  is  all  right,"  said  Josephine. 

"  Three-quarters  of  a  million  at  least,"  remarked 
Guy  Overton  with  the  wink  of  sagacity. 

"What,  so  right  as  all  that?  "  exclaimed  Josephine 
with  the  uplifted  eyebrows  of  incredulity. 

"  Every  penny,"  said  the  youth  with  the  emphasis 
of  pride. 

"  Oh,  money  is  nothing  !  "  said  Amber  with  the 
head  shake  of  indifference. 

"  Nothing  in  the  world,"  acquiesced  Guy,  with  a 
heartiness  that  carried  with  it  absolute  conviction  of 
insincerity  to  the  critical  ears. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  41 

"  Have  you  made  any  progress,  Guy  ?  "  enquired 
Amber. 

"Among  this  racket?"  he  asked.  "Not  much. 
I  think  if  I've  made  any  progress  it's  backwards.  Two 
months  ago  I  could  read  a  novel — if  it  was  the  right 
sort — without  trouble.  But  since  I  have  been  shown 
the  parts  of  the  machine  that  turns  them  out,  blest  if 
I  can  get  beyond  the  first  page." 

"  That's  a  good  sign  ;  it  shows  that  you  are  becom- 
ing critical,"  cried  Amber. 

"Does  it?  Well  ...  I  don't  know.  If 
attending  a  Technical  School  of  Novel-writing  makes 
a  chippie  incapable  of  reading  a  book,  I  don't  think 
the  show  can  be  called  a  success.  Anyway  I  don't 
believe  that  prose  fiction — that's  how  it's  called — is 
the  department  for  me.  I  believe  that  the  poetry 
shop  is  the  one  I'm  meant  to  shine  in.  You  see, 
there's  only  one  sort  of  poetry  nowadays,  and  it's 
easily  taught ;  whereas  there  are  a  dozen  forms  of 
prose  fiction — I  never  guessed  that  the  business  was 
so  complicated  before  I  came  here.  Oh,  yes,  I'll  join 
the  poetry  shop  next  week." 

"  You'll  do  nothing  of  the  sort :  it's  twice  as  com- 
plicated as  this,"  said  Amber  severely. 

"  Don't  tell  me  that,"  he  retorted.  "  I've  heard 
the  best  poetry  of  the  day — yes,  in  the  Music  Halls, 
and  I  believe  that  with  a  little  practice  I  could  turn  it 
out  by  the  web.  All  the  people  want  is  three  verses 
and  a  good  kick  in  the  chorus — something  you  re- 
member easily,  with  a  good  word  about  Tommy 


42  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

Atkins  and  two  for  good  old  Mother  England.  I 
know  the  swing  of  the  thing.  Oh,  yes ;  I'll  get 
seconded  to  the  poetry  shop.  Here  comes  Barnum 
himself." 

His  final  words  were  delivered  in  a  furtive  whisper 
while  Mr.  Richmond  strolled  across  the  room  to  the 
group — it  was  the  last  group  that  remained. 

When  he  had  come  up  Mr.  Guy  Overton  was  ex- 
tremely respectful  in  his  attitude  to  Mr.  Richmond 
and  called  him  "  Sir."  He  looked  at  his  watch,  how- 
ever, a  moment  later  and  said  he  was  an  hour  late  for 
a  particular  appointment  that  he  had,  so  he  reckoned 
he  should  make  himself  distant. 

Mr.  Richmond  smiled  socially,  not  officially,  and 
added  a  nod,  before  turning  to  greet  the  girls.  He 
was  not  very  impressive  while  saying  that  he  felt 
greatly  honoured  to  see  Miss  West  in  the  class-room. 
He  was  sure  that  she  understood  his  aims.  Then  Miss 
West  said  she  was  certain  that  it  must  be  a  great 
pleasure  to  him  to  lecture  before  a  sympathetic  audi- 
ence. He  evaded  her  evasion  and  enquired  of  Miss 
Severn  if  he  might  include  her  among  the  sympathetic 
members  of  his  audience,  and  Miss  Severn  declared 
that  she  had  learned  more  in  ten  minutes  from  him 
respecting  the  literary  value  of  certain  Scotch  words 
than  she  had  acquired  by  reading  the  two  novels  in 
the  Scotch  tongue  which  she  had  mastered  in  the  pre- 
vious four  years  of  her  life,  and  she  hoped  Mr.  Rich- 
mond considered  the  attendance  satisfactory.  He  as- 
sured her  that  sanguine  though  he  had  been  as  to  the 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  43 

number  of  persons  anxious  to  write  novels  the  attend- 
ance at  the  fiction  class  amazed  him. 

"  And  many  who  were  present  to-day  were  actually 
attentive,"  remarked  Josephine. 

"And  one  of  the  ladies  defines  Platonic  Friendship 
as  the  reason  why  Brutus  killed  Caesar — I  hold  the 
document  in  my  hand,"  said  the  master. 

Both  girls  cried  "  How  funny  !  "  and  smiled  their 
way  to  the  door,  which  Mr.  Richmond  held  open  for 
them. 

On  the  way  to  Kensington  Palace  Gardens  they 
agreed  that  the  Khaki  frocks  then  so  popular  would 
not  survive  another  season. 


CHAPTER  VI 

LADY  SEVERN  had  survived  the  measured  mile.  Sir 
Creighton  was  jubilant.  His  daughter  flew  to  him. 
How  did  the  electric  turbine  work  ?  What  was  the  co- 
efficient of  energy  developed  over  the  measured  mile  ? 
Was  forty  miles  actually  touched  and  what  about  the 
depression  in  the  stern  ?  Did  the  boat  steer  all  right 
on  the  progressive  principle  ?  Did  the  Admiral  grum- 
ble as  usual  ? 

Her  father  gave  her  a  detailed  account  of  the  strong 
points  of  the  new  system  of  propulsion,  which  every 
one  had  recognised,  and  of  the  weak  points,  which  he 
alone  had  detected,  and  then  she  was  able  to  drink  her 
tea,  and  so  was  Sir  Creighton. 

Lady  Severn  said  the  lunch  was  excellent ;  only 
when  travelling  by  water  at  the  rate  of  forty-two 
knots  every  one  seemed  inclined  to  eat  at  the  rate  of 
fifty  knots. 

After  drinking  a  cup  of  tea  Sir  Creighton  looked 
at  the  clock  and  sighed. 

"  The  day  is  gone  before  one  gets  any  work  done," 
he  said.  "  I  have  not  been  in  my  room  since  yesterday 
afternoon,  Joe,"  he  added,  looking  at  Josephine  as  if 
hoping  to  find  in  her  a  sympathetic  audience. 

"  You'll  get  no  sympathy  from  me,  Sir  Creighton," 
she  laughed.  "  You  have  done  more  to-day  than  all 
the  men  of  your  craft — I  suppose  that  a  turbine  boat 

44 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  45 

may  be  called  a  craft — have  succeeded  in  accomplish- 
ing during  the  past  hundred  years — forty  knots  ! — just 
think  of  it ! — and  yet  you  complain  of  not  being  able 
to  get  anything  done  !  Oh,  no ;  you'll  get  no  sym- 
pathy from  me." 

Sir  Creighton  went  across  the  room  to  her  and  his 
scientific  skill  enabled  him  to  squeeze  between  his 
finger  and  thumb  that  part  of  her  arm  where  all  the 
sensitive  nerves  meet. 

She  shrieked. 

"  I  will  force  you  to  sympathise  with  me,"  he  said. 
"  You  have  still  another  arm.  What !  they  are  ac- 
tually taking  your  part  ?  " 

Sir  Creighton  had  a  pretty  wit.  It  was  most  ex- 
uberant when  he  had  discovered  a  new  torture  founded 
on  a  purely  scientific  basis.  That  was  how  he  kept 
himself  young. 

"  Oh,  by  the  way,"  said  Amber,  when  he  was 
going  once  more  towards  the  door,  "  Guy  has  picked 
up  with  some  one  from  New  South  Wales  whose 
father  said  he  had  once  known  you.  His  name  is — 
now  what  on  earth  did  he  say  his  name  was  ?  " 

"  Wasn't  it  Mr.  Winwood  ?  "  said  Josephine. 

"  Of  course.  Pierce  Winwood.  Do  you  remem- 
ber any  man  of  that  name — long  ago — it  must  have  been 
long  ago.  He  made  a  big  fortune  in  the  meantime  ?  " 

"  Winwood — Winwood  ?  No,  I  don't  remember 
any  one  bearing  that  name,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 
"  Better  tell  Guy  to  bring  him  out  and  I  dare  say  he'll 
draw  the  threads  together." 


46  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  I  told  Guy  I  was  sure  that  you  would  like  to 
have  a  chat  with  him — the  son,  I  mean ;  he  said  the 
father,  who  claimed  to  know  you,  was  dead." 

"  There's  cause  and  effect  for  you,"  said  Sir  Creigh- 
ton.  "  Better  ask  him  to  dinner  with  Guy — the  son, 
I  mean." 

He  spoke  with  his  hand  on  the  handle  of  the  door, 
and  then  went  whistling  down  the  corridor  to  his 
study  which  opened  out  upon  the  garden  of  roses  at 
the  back  of  the  house.  The  long  table  was  covered 
with  scale  drawings  and  the  smell  of  the  tracing  paper 
filled  the  room.  Sir  Creighton  stood  for  a  few  mo- 
ments looking  down  at  those  tracings  of  the  sections 
of  wheels — wheels  within  wheels — and  the  profiles  of 
pinions. 

"  What  the  Nightingale  sang  to  the  Rose,"  said  the 
man  of  science.  "  Pah,  what  can  any  one  say  about 
the  Nightingale  and  the  Rose  that  has  not  been  said 
before  ? " 

He  turned  over  several  of  the  drawings  critically, 
and  counted  the  leaves  of  one  of  the  pinions. 

u  He  has  made  no  allowance  for  end-shake,"  he 
muttered.  "  A  sixteenth  on  each  pivot.  Was  it  in 
the  Garden  of  Gulistan  ?  I  rather  think  not.  An 
English  rose-garden — why  not  within  the  four-mile 
radius  ? " 

He  stood  at  the  glass  door  leading  out  to  his  own 
garden,  and  remained  there  for  some  minutes  looking 
out  upon  the  great  clusters  of  mixed  blooms.  Then 
he  turned  to  one  of  the  desks  and  unlocking  one  of 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  47 

the  drawers  and,  drawing  it  out  some  way,  slipped  his 
hand  inside,  relieving  the  spring  of  a  secret  compart- 
ment that  seemed  to  be  a  fixture.  He  drew  out  a 
sheaf  of  papers,  covered  with  verses  with  many 
erasures  and  those  countless  corrections  which  com- 
monly occur  in  the  manuscripts  of  poets  who  are  not 
only  inspired  but  who  add  to  the  original  impulse  of 
inspiration  a  fastidiousness  of  phrase  quite  unknown 
to  the  older  poets. 

The  topmost  leaf  of  the  sheaf  contained  a  stanza 
and  a  half  of  a  poem  in  an  original  metre  describing 
how  a  nightingale  came  nightly  to  visit  a  certain  rose, 
but  the  rose  being  only  a  bud,  failed  to  understand 
what  was  the  meaning  of  the  music,  until  on  the 
evening  of  a  burning  day,  when  the  Star  of  Love 
shed  the  only  light  that  came  from  the  sky  through 
the  heavy  scented  air  that  hovered  on  the  rose-garden, 
"  The  faithful  nightingale  sang  this  song :  " 

That  was  where  the  manuscript  ended.  There  was 
space  enough  on  the  paper  for  two  more  stanzas.  All 
that  was  needed  was  to  put  into  words  the  song  that 
the  nightingale  sang  to  stir  the  rosebud  into  the  bloom 
of  passion. 

That  was  the  reflection  of  the  man  of  science  as  he 
read  the  ambitious  prelude  which  he  had  written  the 
previous  day  just  when  the  leader  writers  on  all  the 
newspapers  in  England  were  pointing  out  how  the 
adaptation  of  electricity  to  the  turbine  boat  marked 
the  most  important  epoch  in  the  history  of  marine 
engineering. 


48  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  That's  all  I  have  got  to  do,"  he  muttered  now, 
when  the  cables  were  carrying  to  all  parts  of  the 
world  the  news  that  Sir  Creighton  Severn's  electric 
turbine  had  just  been  tested  over  the  measured  mile 
with  the  most  surprising  results,  a  record  speed  of 
forty-two  knots  having  been  noted.  "  Only  the  song 
of  the  nightingale,"  said  the  man  of  science,  seating 
himself  at  the  desk  with  the  unfinished  poem  in  front 
of  him. 

He  wrote  for  two  hours,  completing  the  poem  en- 
titled "What  the  Nightingale  sang  to  the  Rose," 
which  when  published  above  the  name  "Alen$on  Hope  " 
in  a  magazine  three  months  later  was  so  widely  com- 
mented on,  some  critics  going  so  far  as  to  declare 
with  that  confidence  which  is  the  chief  part  of  the 
equipment  of  the  critic,  that  in  all  the  recently  pub- 
lished volume  by  the  same  author  nothing  more  ex- 
quisite could  be  found. 

It  was  Sir  Creighton's  little  fun  to  publish,  unknown 
to  any  one  in  the  world,  a  volume  of  verse  that  had 
achieved  a  brilliant  success  in  the  world  and  even  in 
his  own  household  where  its  apt  lines  were  frequently 
quoted  both  by  Amber  and  her  brother.  That  was 
how  it  came  about  that  Sir  Creighton  smiled  quite 
vaguely  when  people  remarked  how  strange  it  was 
that  young  Severn  had  shown  an  early  taste  for  writ- 
ing verse.  Who  was  it  that  he  took  after,  they  en- 
quired. They  felt  that  the  exigencies  of  the  theory 
of  heredity  were  fully  satisfied  when  Lady  Severn  ex- 
plained that  there  was  a  tradition  in  her  family  that 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  49 

her  father  had  once  sent  a  valentine  to  her  mother. 
Still  it  was  funny,  they  said,  to  find  the  son  of  a 
father  who  was  a  practical  "  scientist " — that  was 
what  they  called  Sir  Creighton  :  a  "  scientist  " — hav- 
ing a  tendency  to  write  verse. 

Sir  Creighton,  when  he  had  finished  writhing  at  the 
word  "  scientist,"  smiled  quite  vaguely  ;  for  no  one 
seemed  to  entertain  the  idea  that  the  inspiration  which 
had  enabled  the  man  of  science  to  look  into  the  future 
and  see  ships  moving  silently  over  the  water  at  a 
speed  of  forty-two  knots  an  hour  was  precisely  the 
same  quality  which  permitted  of  his  translating  into 
English  metre  the  passionate  song  sung  by  the  Night- 
ingale to  the  Rose. 

No  one  knew  how  refreshed  he  felt  on  returning  to 
his  electrical  designs  after  spending  an  hour  or  two 
over  those  exquisite  fabrics  of  verse  which  appeared  in 
the  volume  by  "Alen$on  Hope"  Rhythm  and  arith- 
metic seem  to  many  people  to  be  the  positive  and 
negative  poles  of  a  magnet,  but  both  mean  the  same 
thing  in  the  language  from  which  they  are  derived. 

"  Poor  old  pater  !  "  said  Amber  when  the  girls  were 
left  alone  with  Lady  Severn.  "  He  is  back  again  at 
one  of  those  problems  which  he  has  set  himself  to 
solve  for  the  good  of  the  world.  Poor  old  pater  !  " 

"  Old  !  "  cried  Josephine.  "  I  never  met  any  one 
so  young  in  the  whole  course  of  my  life.  In  his 
presence  I  feel  quite  mature." 

"The  greatest  problem  that  he  has  solved  is  the 
science  of  living,"  said  Lady  Severn.  "  If  he  has  not 


50  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

discovered  the  secret  of  perpetual  youth,  he  has  mas- 
tered the  more  important  mystery  of  perpetual  hap- 
piness." 

"  He  knows  that  it  is  best  seen  through  another's 
eye,"  said  Josephine. 

At  this  point  a  young  man  with  a  very  shiny  hat  in 
his  hand  was  shown  in.  He  was  greeted  by  Amber 
by  the  name  of  Arthur  and  by  the  others  as  Mr. 
Galmyn.  He  was  a  somewhat  low-sized  youth  with 
very  fair  hair  breaking  into  curls  here  and  there  that 
suggested  the  crests  of  a  wave  blown  by  the  wind.  It 
was  not  his  curls,  however,  but  his  eyes  that  attracted 
the  attention  of  most  people ;  for  his  eyes  were  large 
and  delicately  blue.  Sentimentalists  who  sat  opposite 
him  in  an  omnibus — an  omnibus  is  full  of  sentimental 
people,  six  on  each  side — were  accustomed  to  see  a 
certain  depth  of  sadness  in  Arthur  Galmyn's  eyes. 
He  would  have  felt  greatly  disappointed  if  they  had 
failed  to  think  them  sad.  He  had  long  ago  formed  a 
definite  opinion  about  their  expression.  They  had 
caused  him  a  great  deal  of  thought  and  some  trouble 
in  his  time,  but  he  had  long  ago  come  to  feel  every 
confidence  in  their  sadness.  It  was  his  aim  to  see 
that  his  life  was  congenially  tinged  with  a  mild 
melancholy. 

He  quoted  from  "The  Lotus  Eaters"  and  tried  to 
realise  a  life  "in  which  it  always  seemed  after- 
noon." 

He  took  tea  punctually  at  five. 

"  If  you  please,"  he  said.     "  I  know  that  the  tea 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


leaves  are  never  allowed  to  remain  in  your  tea-pot.  I 
have  no  disquieting  recollection  of  your  tea-pot, 
Amber.  And  a  cake — one  of  the  hot  ones,  Miss 
West.  They  have  no  currants.  I  know  that  I  shall 
never  run  the  chance  of  coming  in  personal  contact 
with  a  currant,  change  you  your  cakes  never  so  often. 
I  found  myself  confronted  with  a  currant  without  a 
moment's  warning  a  few  days  ago  at  Lady  March's. 
I  was  saddened.  And  I  thought  I  knew  her  tea-cakes 
so  well.  I  felt  for  some  days  as  if  I  had  heard  of  a 
dear  friend's  committing  a  forgery — as  if  I  had  come 
across  you  suddenly  in  the  Park  wearing  mauve,  in- 
stead of  pink,  Amber." 

"  It  does  tinge  one's  life  with  melancholy.  Have 
you  made  any  money  to-day  ?  "  said  Amber  in  one 
breath. 

He  drank  his  cup  of  tea  and  bit  off  a  segment  from 
the  circle  of  the  tea  cake,  then  he  looked  earnestly  at 
the  tips  of  his  fingers.  Two  of  them  were  shiny. 

"  I've  not  done  badly,"  he  said.  "  I  made  about 
eight  pounds.  It  doesn't  seem  much,  does  it  ?  But 
that  eight  pounds  is  on  the  right  side  of  the  ledger, 
and  that's  something." 

u  It's  excellent,"  said  Lady  Severn. 
"  I  consider  it  most  praiseworthy  if  you  made  it  by 
fair  dealing,"  said  Josephine. 

"  Oh,  Joe,  don't  discourage  him  so  early  in  his 
career,"  cried  Amber. 

Arthur  Galmyn  finished  the  tea  in  his  cup  and  laid 
it  thoughtfully  before  Amber  to  be  refilled. 


52  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  It's  quite  delicious,"  he  said.  "  Quite  delicious. 
I  wonder  if  anything  is  quite  fair  in  the  way  of  mak- 
ing money — except  the  tables  at  Monte  Carlo : 
there's  no  cheating  done  there." 

"  That's  what  I  wonder  too,"  said  Josephine. 

"Anyway  I've  only  made  eight  pounds  to-day — 
there's  not  much  cheating  in  eight  pounds,  is  there, 
Miss  West?"  said  Mr.  Galmyn. 

"Everything  must  have  a  beginning,"  said  Miss 
West. 

"  Don't  be  discouraged,  Arthur,"  said  Amber. 
"If  you  only  continue  on  this  system  I've  laid  down 
for  you  you'll  make  plenty  of  money,  and  what's  bet- 
ter still  you  will  become  reformed." 

"  I've  given  up  poetry  already,"  said  he,  in  the  sad 
tone  that  one  adopts  in  speaking  of  one's  pleasant 
vices  which  one  is  obliged  to  relinquish  through  the 
tyranny  of  years. 

"  That's  a  step  in  the  right  direction,"  said  Amber. 
"  Oh,  I've  no  doubt  as  to  your  future,  Arthur.  But 
you  must  study  hard — oh,  yes,  you  must  study 
hard." 

"So  I  do:  I  can  tell  you  the  closing  price  of  all 
Home  Rails  to-day  without  referring  to  a  list." 

"Really?  Well,  you  are  progressing.  What 
about  Industrials  ?  "  said  Amber. 

"  I'm  leaving  over  Industrials  for  another  week," 
he  replied.  "  I've  given  all  my  attention  to  Home 
Rails  during  the  past  fortnight.  I  dare  say  if  I  don't 
break  down  under  the  strain  I  shall  go  through  a 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  53 

course  of  Industrials  inside  another  week,  and  then 
go  on  to  Kaffirs." 

"  It's  at  Industrials  that  the  money  is  to  be  made, 
you  must  remember,"  said  Amber.  "  Let  me  enforce 
upon  you  once  more  the  non-speculative  business — 
don't  think  of  coups.  Aim  only  at  a  half  per  cent,  of 
a  rise,  and  take  advantage  of  even  the  smallest  rise." 

"That's  how  I  made  my  eight  pounds  to-day," 
said  he.  "You  see  when  things  were  very  flat  in  the 
morning  there  came  the  report  of  a  great  British 
victory.  I  knew  that  it  wasn't  true,  but  half  a  dozen 
things  went  up  ten  shillings  or  so  and  I  unloaded — 
unloaded.  It's  so  nice  to  have  those  words  pat ;  it 
makes  you  feel  that  you're  in  the  swim  of  the  thing. 
If  I  only  knew  what  contango  meant,  I  think  I  could 
make  an  impressive  use  of  that  word  also." 

At  this  point  another  visitor  was  announced.  His 
name  was  Mr.  William  Bateman.  He  was  a  bright 
looking  man  of  perhaps  a  year  or  two  over  thirty,  and 
though  he  was  close  upon  six  feet  in  height  he  proba- 
bly would  have  ridden  under  ten  stone,  so  earnest 
was  the  attention  that  he  had  given  to  his  figure. 

He  would  not  take  any  tea. 


CHAPTER  VII 

"  WE  have  been  talking  shop  as  usual,  Mr.  Bate- 
man,"  said  Lady  Severn.  "  I  wonder  if  there's  an- 
other drawing-room  in  London  where  shop  and  shop 
only  is  talked  !  " 

"  To  say  that  shop  is  talked  in  a  drawing-room  is 
only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  people  in  that 
drawing-room  never  cease  to  be  interesting,"  said 
Amber.  "  So  long  as  people  talk  of  what  they  know 
they  are  interesting  and  shop  is  the  shortest  way  of 
describing  what  people  understand.  So  how  is  your 
shop,  Mr.  Bateman  ?  " 

"  Flourishing,"  said  Mr.  Bateman,  with  something 
of  a  Scotch  accent.  "  Miss  Amber,  I  bless  the  day 
when  you  suggested  that  I  should  take  up  the  adver- 
tising business.  I  had  no  idea  that  it  was  a  business 
that  required  the  exercise  of  so  much  imagination." 

"  Have  you  made  much  money  to-day  ?  "  enquired 
Amber. 

"  I  think  I  must  hurry  away,"  said  Josephine. 
"  We  have  a  political  party  to-night,  and  I'm  tired  of 
seeing  Amber's  friends  flaunting  their  wealth  before 
us.  If  Mr.  Galmyn  made  eight  pounds  in  the  course 
of  the  morning  and  he  is  a  poet,  what  must  Mr.  Bate- 
man have  made  ?  " 

"  And  he  is  a  Scotchman,"  said  Mr.  Bateman 
pleasantly. 

54 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  55 

"Yes,  that  finish  was  in  my  mind  I  must  confess," 
said  Josephine.  "  Do  not  be  led  into  dishonesty  by 
any  one,  Mr.  Galmyn ;  you  will  be  far  happier  as  a 
humble  lyric  poet  with  the  consciousness  of  being 
honest  than  as  a  great  financier  with  an  imaginary 
mine  up  your  sleeve." 

"  Go  away,  before  you  do  any  further  mischief," 
cried  Amber.  "  Don't  believe  her,  Arthur.  If  you 
ever  have  a  gold  mine  up  your  sleeve,  we'll  float  it 
between  us." 

"And  we'll  let  Miss  West  in  on  the  ground  floor," 
said  Arthur.  "  That's  another  good  phrase  that  I've 
got  hold  of  already.  The  'ground  floor.' ' 

"  What  does  it  mean  ?  "  asked  Lady  Severn,  when 
Josephine  had  left  the  room.  "  Does  it  mean  any- 
thing in  particular  ?  " 

"  It  means  joining  a  thing  at  par,"  replied  Arthur 
sadly.  "  Oh,  yes  !  I'm  getting  into  the  swing  of 
the  thing.  Perhaps  I  may  know  what  contango 
means  before  another  week  has  gone  by." 

"  I  should  dearly  like  to  know  what  contango 
means,"  said  Amber  sympathetically.  It  was  her 
sympathetic  manner  that  made  a  word  or  two  from 
her  change  the  whole  course  of  certain  young  lives — 
for  a  time.  "  I  was  asking  you  about  your  prospects, 
Mr.  Bateman,"  she  added,  turning  to  the  latest  addi- 
tion to  her  circle.  "  I  do  hope  that  you  are  making 
your  way." 

"  Making  my  way  ?  "  said  he  gravely,  and  then  he 
gave  a  little  laugh — a  cautious  little  laugh,  as  of  feel- 


56  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

ing  his  way  to  ascertain  how  far  he  might  safely  go  ip 
the  direction  of  hilarity.  "  Making  my — oh,  yes  ;  I 
can't  complain.  I  see  a  great  future  for  my  business 
if  it  is  developed  on  the  right  lines,  and  if  too  many 
adventurers  do  not  take  it  up." 

"  It  requires  too  much  imagination  to  turn  out  a 
success  in  everybody's  hands,"  said  Amber. 

"  Imagination,"  said  he.  "  My  dear  Miss  Amber, 
it  requires  nothing  but  imagination.  In  these  days 
advertising  is  the  greatest  power  that  exists.  It  is, 
counting  all  its  branches,  the  most  important  British 
industry.  There's  nothing  that  cannot  be  accom- 
plished by  discreet  advertising." 

14  You  can  sell  a  soap  by  it  at  any  rate,"  said  Lady 
Severn. 

"  Oh,  soap  selling  and  pill  selling  are  too  easy  to 
need  any  of  the  more  delicate  methods,"  said  Mr. 
Bateman.  "  Everybody — nearly  everybody — wants 
soap  and  no  one  can  live  without  medicine — some 
people  live  on  nothing  else.  Of  course  I  don't 
trouble  myself  over  the  rough  and  tumble  advertising 
of  drugs.  As  I  told  you  last  week  I  intend  to  pro- 
ceed on  a  higher  plane.  I  leave  posters  and  sand- 
wich men  and  other  antediluvian  methods  for  others. 
I  am  determined  never  to  forget  that  I  am  an  artist 
and  that  I  was  once  in  a  cavalry  regiment." 

"Have  you  struck  out  anything  new  since  you 
told  us  of  your  scheme  for  pushing  things  on  by  hold- 
ing them  up  to  ridicule  ?  "  asked  Amber. 

"  Oh,  you   allude  to  what  I  did  for  the  Technical 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  57 

School  of  Literature.  You  know,  of  course,  that  I 
only  got  that  ridiculed  into  notice  because  of  the 
interest  you  took  in  it,  Miss  Amber.  But  I've  un- 
dertaken to  see  a  young  chap  into  Parliament  by  the 
same  means.  He  is  really  such  a  foolish  young  man 
I  believe  that  nothing  could  keep  him  out  of  Parlia- 
ment in  the  long  run ;  but  he  wants  to  get  in  at  the 
next  General  Election,  so  we  haven't  much  time  to 
spare.  I  got  him  to  make  a  Vegetarian  Speech  a 
fortnight  ago,  and  then  I  arranged  with  a  number  of 
excellent  newspapers  to  ridicule  all  that  he  had  said. 
They  are  at  it  to-day,  all  over  the  country." 

"  His  name  is  Thornleigh  and  he  said  that  no  one 
could  wear  leather  boots  and  remain  a  Christian," 
cried  Amber. 

"There,  you  see,"  said  Mr.  Bateman  proudly. 
"  He  has  already  become  known  to  you — yes,  and  he 
shall  be  known  to  every  man,  woman  and  child  in 
England.  The  Vegetarians  are  taking  him  up  and 
he'll  become  more  ridiculous  every  day  until  his  name 
is  a  by-word.  You  can't  keep  a  man  out  of  Parlia- 
ment whose  name  is  a  by-word  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  country.  Then  I've  a  young 
woman  who  simply  wants  to  get  her  name  into  the 
papers.  It's  marvellous  how  universal  this  aspiration 
is.  Anyhow  I  think  I  can  promise  her  a  good 
move." 

"  She  has  only  to  kill  a  baby,"  suggested  Mr. 
Galmyn  in  a  flash  of  inspiration. 

"  No   more   brilliant   suggestion   could    be   made," 


58  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

said  Mr.  Bateman.  "But  it  does  more  credit  to  your 
heart  than  to  you  head,  Galmyn,  my  friend.  If  you 
sit  down  and  give  the  matter  that  thoughtful  con- 
sideration it  deserves,  I  think  you  will  agree  with  me 
that  the  goal  aimed  at  can  be  reached  by  equally  legiti- 
mate means  and  with  less  risk.  I  am  going  to  put  up 
the  young  woman  at  the  next  meeting  of  the  County 
Council's  Licensing  Committee  to  oppose  the  re- 
newal of  any  singing  and  dancing  licenses  whatsoever. 
That  is  the  least  expensive  and  most  effective  way  of 
pushing  forward  a  nonentity  with  aspirations.  She 
will  soon  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  an  intelligent 
woman,  and  the  newspapers  will  publish  her  opinion 
upon  the  conduct  of  the  recent  campaign  as  well  as 
upon  the  management  of  children." 

"  You  don't  think  that  you  are  too  sanguine,  Mr. 
Bateman,"  suggested  Lady  Severn. 

11 1  prefer  to  understate  rather  than  exaggerate  the 
possibilities  of  such  a  step  as  I  have  suggested,  Lady 
Severn,"  said  Mr.  Bateman.  "  And  moreover  I  will 
do  my  best  to  prevent  my  client  from  writing  a  novel. 
Writing  a  novel  rather  gives  away  the  show.  Then 
another  client  whom  I  have  just  secured  to-day  is  the 
mother  of  two  very  ordinary  daughters.  The  mother 
is  vulgar  and  wealthy,  and  the  daughters  wear  birds 
in  their  toques.  They  know  no  one  in  Society  and 
yet  before  six  months  have  gone  by  you  will  find  that 
no  column  of  society  gossip  will  be  considered  com- 
plete that  does  not  contain  some  reference  to  their 
movements,  and  they  will  probably  marry  baronets — 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  59 

perhaps  peers.  I  have  also  got  on  my  books  a  young 
American  lady,  who  has  set  her  heart  on  a  peer,  poor 
thing  !  " 

"  Poor  thing  ?  does  that  refer  to  the  lady  or  to  the 
peer  ?  "  asked  Amber. 

"  Possibly  to  both,  Miss  Amber.  Anyhow  I'm 
going  to  start  the  campaign  by  denying  on  authority 
that  any  engagement  exists  between  the  young  lady 
and  a  still  younger  Duke.  Now  I  need  scarcely  say 
that  the  desire  to  know  more  about  a  young  lady  who 
is  not  engaged  to  marry  a  Duke  is  practically  uni- 
versal. Well,  I'll  take  good  care  to  let  the  public 
know  more  about  my  client,  and  she  may  be  engaged 
to  marry  the  Duke  after  all — perhaps  she  may  even 
marry  a  member  of  the  Stock  Exchange  itself.  But 
you  mustn't  suppose  that  my  clients  are  exclusively 
ladies." 

"Ladies  ?  ladies  ?  oh,  no,  Mr.  Bateman,  I  am  sure 
we  should  never  suppose  that  they  were  ladies,"  said 
Lady  Severn. 

"They  are  not,"  said  Mr.  Bateman.  "Only  a 
few  days  ago  an  honest  but  obscure  tradesman  placed 
himself  in  my  hands.  The  fact  is  that  he  has  laid  in 
an  absurdly  large  stock  of  High  Church  literature  as 
well  as  ornaments,  and  he  cannot  get  rid  of  them. 
The  stupid  man  has  not  acumen  enough  to  perceive 
that  all  he  has  got  to  do  in  order  to  get  his  name  into 
every  paper  in  the  Kingdom,  with  a  portrait  in  the 
Weeklies  and  a  stereo-block  in  the  Evening  editions, 
is  to  disturb  a  Low  Church  congregation,  and  insist 


60  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

on  being  prosecuted  as  a  brawler.  If  he  succeeds  in 
getting  prosecuted  into  popularity  he  may  double  his 
already  large  stock  and  yet  be  certain  of  getting  rid 
of  it  all  within  a  week  of  his  first  appearance  at  the 
Police  Court." 

"  You  are  certainly  making  an  art  of  the  business, 
Mr.  Bateman,"  said  Amber.  "  I  had  no  idea  when 
I  suggested  to  you  the  possibilities  of  an  advertising 
agency  that  you  would  develop  it  to  such  an  extent." 

"Nor  had  I,  Miss  Amber.  But  I  have  really  only 
reported  progress  to  you  in  a  few  of  the  cases  I  have 
now  before  me.  I  have  said  nothing  about  the  lady 
manicurist  to  whom  I  am  giving  a  show  by  means  of 
an  action  for  libel ;  nor  have  I  told  you  of  the  tooth 
paste  to  which  I  am  going  to  give  a  start  through  the 
legitimate  agency  of  a  breach  of  promise  case.  The 
falling  out  between  the  two  litigants — whom  I  may 
mention  incidentally " 

"  Dentally,"  suggested  Mr.  Galmyn  in  a  low  tone. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon.  Oh,  yes,  of  course.  Well, 
dentally — to  be  sure,  it's  a  tooth  paste — yes,  and  in- 
cidentally, are  the  proprietors  of  the  article — their 
difference  arose  not  upon  the  actual  merits  of  the 
tooth  paste,  for  every  love  letter  that  will  be  read  in 
court  will  contain  a  handsome  acknowledgment  of 
the  fact  that  the  article  is  superior  to  any  in  the 
market — no,  the  misunderstanding  arose  through — as 
the  counsel  for  the  defence  will  allege — the  lady's 
head  having  been  completely  turned  by  the  compli- 
ments which  she  received  from  her  friends  upon  the 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  61 

marvellous  change  in  her  appearance  since  she  was 
induced  to  use  the  Tivoli  Toothicum^  the  new  prepa- 
ration for  the  teeth  and  gums.  Oh,  believe  me,  the 
ordinary  system  of  advertising  is  obsolete.  By  the 
way,  I  wonder  if  you  know  any  one  who  is  ac- 
quainted with  a  young  Australian  lately  come  to 
London.  His  name  is  Mr.  Winwood — Pierce  Win- 
wood." 

"Why,  Guy  Overton  was  talking  to  us  to-day 
about  this  very  person,"  said  Amber.  "  Is  it  possible 
that  he  has  placed  himself  in  your  hands,  Mr.  Bate- 
man  ? " 

"Not  yet — not  yet.  I  only  heard  about  him  yes- 
terday. I  hope  that  he  will  enter  his  name  on  my 
books.  I  am  very  anxious  to  get  a  good  Colonial 
Clientele.  The  way  the  chances  of  first-class  Colo- 
nials have  been  frittered  away  in  this  country  makes 
the  heart  of  any  one  with  the  true  feelings  of  an 
Imperialist  to  bleed.  I  know  that  I  can  do  every- 
thing for  this  Mr.  Winwood,  but,  of  course,  though 
I  can  advertise  others,  I  cannot  advertise  myself — 
no,  I  can  only  trust  to  my  friends  to  do  that  for  me." 

"  So  that  on  the  whole  you  have  your  hands  pretty 
full  just  now  ?  "  said  Amber. 

"  Pretty  full  ?  My  dear  Miss  Amber,  if  I  were 
engaged  in  no  other  branch  of  my  business  but  the 
complete  prospectus  list,  I  should  still  have  my  hands 
full.  I  did  not  mention  this  list,  by  the  way.  Well, 
I  think  it  will  place  in  my  hands  at  once  the  largest 
prospectus  addressing  business  in  the  Kingdom.  Good 


62  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

heavens !  when  one  thinks  of  the  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  pounds  at  present  being  squandered  in  pro- 
miscuous prospectus  posting,  one  is  led  to  wonder  if 
there  is  any  real  knowledge  of  this  business  on  the 
part  of  company  promoters.  At  present  they  allow 
their  prospectuses  to  be  thrown  broadcast  around  ;  so 
that  on  an  average  it  may  be  said  that  nine-tenths  of 
these  documents  fall  into  the  hands  of  intelligent — 
that  is  to  say,  moderately  intelligent  people  who,  of 
course,  see  at  once  through  the  schemes.  Now  it  is 
clear  that  to  let  the  prospectuses  fall  into  the  hands 
of  intelligent  people  does  positive  harm." 

"  Not  if  they  decline  to  be  drawn,"  suggested  Mr. 
Galmyn. 

"  I  am  discussing  the  question  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  promoters,  you  forget,  my  dear  Galmyn.  It  is 
plain  that  if  the  intelligent  people  who  see  through 
the  schemes  talk  to  their  friends  about  the  flotations, 
they  will  do  the  promoters'  position  harm.  Now, 
with  the  list  which  I  am  compiling  it  will  be  impos- 
sible for  a  prospectus  to  go  astray,  for  my  list  will 
contain  only  the  names  of  widows  left  with  small 
means  which  they  are  anxious  to  increase,  orphans 
left  without  trustees,  small  shopkeepers,  governesses, 
half-pay  officers,  clerks  and  clergymen — in  short  only 
such  people  as  know  nothing  about  business,  and 
who  invariably  skip  all  the  small  print  in  a  prospectus, 
whereas,  I  need  scarcely  say,  the  small  print  is  the 
only  part  of  a  prospectus  that  an  intelligent  person 
reads.  The  list  that  I  am  compiling  is  taking  up  a 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  63 

great  deal  of  time ;  but  I  will  guarantee  that  it  does 
not  contain  half  a  dozen  names  of  intelligent  people. 
The  only  surprising  thing  is  that  such  a  list  was  not 
compiled  long  ago.  Oh,  you  must  pardon  my  ego- 
tism -,  I  have  bored  you  to  a  point  of  extinction,  but 
I  knew  that  you  would  be  interested  in  hearing  of  my 
progress.  I  can  never  forget  that  it  was  you  who 
told  me  that  I  should  not  waste  my  time  but  take  up 
some  enterprise  demanding  the  exercise  of  such  talents 
as  I  possess.  I  hope  should  you  meet  this  Mr.  Pierce 
Winwood,  you  will  mention  my  name  to  him — casu- 
ally, of  course — as  casually  as  possible.  Good-after- 
noon, Lady  Severn.  Good-afternoon,  Miss  Amber. 
Are  you  coming  my  way,  Galmyn — I  can  give  you  a 
lift  ? " 

"  No,  I'm  going  in  just  the  opposite  direction," 
said  Mr.  Galmyn. 

Then  Mr.  Bateman  smiled  his  way  to  the  door. 

"  What  a  bounder  !  "  murmured  the  other  man. 

"  He  has  found  congenial  employment  certainly," 
said  Lady  Severn.  "  Oh,  Amber,  Amber,  your  name 
is  Frankenstein." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SOME  days  had  actually  passed  before  Amber 
Severn  read  the  "time-study  "  on  the  subject  of 
Platonic  Friendship  which  had  been  confided  to  her 
by  her  friend  Josephine.  She  read  the  quickly  writ- 
ten and  vaguely  worded  treatise  with  alternate  smiles 
and  frowns,  and  the  last  words  that  it  contained  called 
for  a  very  becoming  rose  mantle  of  blushes. 

"  It  is  so  like  Joe  !  "  she  muttered.  "  So  very  like 
Joe.  And  it's  all  wrong — all  wrong  !  " 

She  had  thrown  herself  in  her  dressing-gown  on  the 
sofa  in  her  dressing-room  hoping  to  have  half  an 
hour's  doze  before  dressing  to  go  out  to  dinner ;  and 
she  had  found  the  document  in  the  pocket  of  the 
luxurious  garment  of  quilted  satin  and  lace  which 
suited  her  so  well  that  her  maid  had  often  lamented 
the  fact  that  the  convenances  of  modern  English  So- 
ciety precluded  her  being  seen  within  its  folds  by  any 
one  except  her  mother  and  her  maid. 

"  It  is  so  like  Joe  !  And  it  is  meant  as  a  commen- 
tary upon  my  friendships.  But  it  is  wrong — wrong  !  " 

This  was  her  thought  as  she  lay  back  upon  the 
sofa,  until  the  pillows  among  which  she  had  thrown 
herself  surged  up  all  about  her  as  though  they  were 
billows  of  the  sea. 

And  then,  instead  of  going  asleep,  she  began  to  re- 
view three  or  four  of  the  friendships  which  she  had 

64 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  65 

formed  during  the  past  few  years — friendships  which 
might  easily  have  degenerated  into  quite  another  feel- 
ing, if  they  had  not  been  built  on  a  foundation  very 
different  from  that  which  Josephine  West  had  assumed 
to  be  the  basis  of  friendship  according  to  Plato. 

There  was  Arthur  Galmyn  for  instance.  He  and 
she  had  become  very  friendly  when  they  had  first  met 
the  year  before.  He  had  been  at  Oxford  with  her 
brother  and  had  won  one  of  those  pernicious  prizes 
which  are  offered  for  the  best  poem  of  the  year — to 
be  more  exact,  for  the  poem  which  is  most  highly  ap- 
proved of  by  the  adjudicating  authorities  of  the  Uni- 
versity. She  quickly  perceived  that  the  effect  of  win- 
ning this  prize  was,  upon  young  Mr.  Galmyn,  most 
disquieting  ;  for  he  had  actually  settled  down  as  a  poet 
on  the  strength  of  winning  it. 

Instead  of  saying,  "  I  have  written  the  poem  which 
has  met  with  the  approval  of  the  most  highly  grad- 
uated pedants  in  the  world,  therefore  I  am  no  poet," 
he  assumed  that  pedant  was  another  word  for  prophet, 
and  that  their  judgment  had  conferred  immortality 
upon  him  and  perhaps  even  upon  themselves ;  for 
whenever  his  name  came  to  be  spoken  in  the  awful 
whisper  which  people  employ  in  mentioning  the  name 
of  a  poet,  the  names  of  the  adjudicators  of  the  prize 
would  also  be  mentioned. 

He  hoped  to  go  through  life  writing  poetry — not 
the  poetry  which  appears  on  a  Christmas  card  or  im- 
printed on  the  little  ship  which  never  loses  the  curl 
that  is  originally  gained  by  being  enwound  about  the 


66  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

almond  in  the  after  dinner  cracker — not  even  the 
poetry  which  is  sung,  when  wedded  to  melody,  by  the 
light  of  a  piano  candle, — no  ;  but  that  form  of  poetry 
which  is  absolutely  an  unsalable  commodity  in  the 
public  market — unless  it  was  of  that  high  quality 
which  appeared  over  the  signature  of  Alencon  Hope 
to  which  Amber  had  frequently  called  the  inattention 
of  her  father. 

It  was  just  when  he  was  in  this  critical  position 
that  he  came  under  the  influence  of  Amber  Severn. 
They  had  become  ostentatiously  Platonic  friends.  To 
be  sure  he  had,  after  their  second  meeting,  addressed 
to  her  a  sonnet  written  in  exquisite  accordance  with 
the  true  Petrarchian  model,  embodying  a  fervent  hope 
in  the  last  line  of  the  sestett — the  two  quatrains  (each 
ending  with  a  semicolon)  had  been  mainly  descriptive 
— but  she  had  explained  to  him  that  she  would  take 
a  lenient  view  of  this  action  on  his  part,  if  he  would 
promise  to  do  his  best  to  resist  in  the  future  the  in- 
spiration which  had  forced  him  into  it. 

He  had  promised  her  all  that  she  asked  ;  but  he  gave 
her  to  understand  that  he  did  so  only  through  fear  of 
alienation  from  her. 

"  I  shrink  from  life  from  Amber  alienate," 

was  the  last  line  of  the  sonnet  which  he  promptly  com- 
posed after  she  had  lectured  him  ;  and  then  he  had  set- 
tled down  into  that  graceful  philosophical  friendship 
with  her,  which  had  sent  him  on  the  Stock  Exchange 
before  three  months  had  elapsed. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  67 

It  took  three  months  to  convince  him  that  she  was 
quite  right  in  her  suggestion  that  instead  of  spending 
the  best  years  of  his  life  writing  poetry,  having  noth- 
ing to  look  forward  to  beyond  the  perpetual  struggle 
of  trying  to  live  within  the  four  hundred  pounds  a  year 
which  represented  all  his  private  means,  he  should 
endeavour  to  make  a  career  for  himself  in  some  direc- 
tion where  his  undoubted  gifts  of  imagination  would 
be  appreciated— say  the  Stock  Exchange. 

"My  dear  Arthur,"  she  had  said,  "what  I  fear 
most  for  you  is  the  possibility  of  your  making  a 
mercenary  marriage.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that 
it  would  be  ridiculous  for  you  to  marry  on  your  pres- 
ent income,  and  I  know  your  nature  sufficiently  well 
to  be  convinced  that  you  would  never  be  happy  so 
long  as  you  felt  that  your  wife's  fortune  was  support- 
ing you.  Don't  you  agree  with  me  ?  " 

He  thought  that  she  took  too  narrow  a  view  of  the 
conditions  under  which  he  could  be  happy  ;  but  he 
thought  it  better  to  nod  his  acquiescence  in  the  flat- 
tering estimate  which  she  had  formed  of  his  nature. 

"  I  knew  you  would  agree  with  me,"  she  said. 
"  And  that's  why  I  urge  upon  you  this  step."  (The 
step  she  urged  upon  him  was  the  Stock  Exchange 
Steps.)  "You  will  have  to  study  hard  at  first,  and  I 
believe  that  you  must  begin  by  trusting  nobody — es- 
pecially avoiding  every  one  who  wants  to  be  your 
friend  ;  but  by  this  means  you  will  eventually  gain 
not  only  a  competence — not  only  complete  independ- 
ence, but  such  a  Fortune  as  will  make  you  a  Power 


68  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

in  the  world,  and  then — well,  then  you  can  marry 
any  one  you  please." 

Although  the  poem  which  he  considered  the  best 
that  he  had  ever  written  was  one  in  praise  of  a  young 
woman  who  had  remained  true  to  her  love  for  a  poet 
without  a  penny,  in  the  face  of  the  opposition  of  her 
parents  who  wished  her  to  wed  a  very  rich  person  in 
a  good  paying  business,  he  said  he  was  sure  that  she 
was  right,  and  he  would  give  her  his  promise  to  buy  a 
twenty-five  shilling  silk  hat  the  very  next  day  :  that 
being,  as  he  was  informed,  the  first  step  necessary  to  be 
taken  by  any  one  with  aspirations  after  financial  success. 

He  had  an  idea  that,  after  all,  he  had  underrated 
the  practical  outlook  of  the  modern  young  woman. 
Could  it  be  possible,  he  asked  himself,  that  after  all 
the  penniless  poet  who  wrote  on  the  Petrarchian 
model,  was  a  less  attractive  figure  in  the  eyes  of  a 
girl — even  of  a  girl  who  could  not  be  seen  by  any  one 
without  suggesting  the  thoughts  of  a  flower — perhaps 
a  lily — than  the  man  with  a  million  invested  in 
various  excellent  securities  ? 

He  feared  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  arrive 
at  any  other  conclusion  than  this  one  which  was 
forced  upon  him ;  and  the  worst  of  the  matter  was 
that  he  found  that  all  his  sympathies  were  on  the  side 
of  the  modern  young  woman,  although  he  would 
have  died  sooner  than  withdraw  a  single  line  of  the 
poem  which  he  had  written  holding  up  to  admiration 
the  young  woman  who  refused  to  leave  her  penniless 
poet  for  the  man  of  millions. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  69 

He  bought  a  fine  silk  hat  the  next  day,  and  forth- 
with wrote  a  series  of  rondeaux  bidding  farewell  to 
the  Muse.  He  felt  that  such  an  act  of  renunciation 
on  his  part  demanded  celebration  on  the  analogy  of 
the  Lenten  Carnival.  But  when  his  days  of  riotous 
indulgence  in  all  the  exotic  forms  of  French  verse 
had  come  to  an  end,  he  gave  himself  up  to  a  con- 
sideration of  his  bank  book  and  found  to  his  amaze- 
ment that  his  accumulations  including  a  legacy  of  two 
thousand  pounds  which  he  had  received  from  the 
executors  of  his  godmother,  amounted  to  close  upon 
four  thousand  pounds. 

For  over  two  years  his  account  had  been  increasing, 
the  trustees  of  the  estate  of  his  father  (deceased)  hav- 
ing been  in  the  habit  of  lodging  the  quarterly  pay- 
ments of  his  income  (less  expenses)  to  his  credit,  and 
yet  he  was  receiving  no  penny  of  interest  on  all  this 
money. 

He  was  innocent  enough  to  ask  the  young  man  at 
the  bank  how  it  was  that  no  circular  had  been  sent  to 
him  letting  him  know  that  his  account  was  over- 
grown. If  it  had  been  overdrawn  he  would  have 
been  informed  of  the  fact. 

The  young  man  had  only  smiled  and  said  that  he 
was  sure  the  matter  had  been  overlooked  ;  for  there 
was  nothing  that  the  bank  found  so  embarrassing  as 
large  balances  bearing  no  interest. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  he  would  have 
blushed  to  ask  such  a  question  as  he  had  put  to  the 
clerk.  He  began  to  study  the  methods  of  finance 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 


for  the  first  time  and  had  almost  mastered  the  art  em- 
bodied in  a  gold  mine  prospectus — it  is  the  Petrarch- 
ian  Sonnet  of  the  money  market — before  he  had  been 
a  month  at  the  work.  By  a  rigid  attention  to 
Amber's  precept  of  placing  the  most  implicit  distrust 
in  every  one  connected  with  finance,  he  had  made  a 
very  good  start  for  himself. 

His  principle  was  an  excellent  one.  He  made 
several  friends  among  those  disinterested  financiers 
who  give  advice  gratis  as  to  what  stocks  to  buy  and 
he  had  never  failed  to  act  contrary  to  the  tips  which 
they  had  given  him ;  so  that  when  a  few  days  later, 
they  came  to  him  with  assumed  long  faces  and  frank 
admissions  of  fallibility  in  the  past  but  of  promises 
of  certainty  for  the  future,  he  had  shown  them  that 
he  was  made  of  the  stuff  that  goes  to  the  composition 
of  a  real  financier  by  being  in  no  way  put  out ;  and 
disdaining  to  level  a  single  reproach  at  them. 

"Distrust  your  best  friend,"  was  the  motto  which 
he  placed  in  a  conspicuous  place  on  his  mantelpiece, 
and  by  observing  it  he  had  made  some  hundreds  of 
pounds  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks. 

And  then  he  made  a  stroke ;  for  on  hearing  from 
a  great  authority  on  the  Stock  Exchange  that  there 
was  going  to  be  no  war  in  the  Transvaal,  and  that 
those  rumours  regarding  strained  relations  between 
that  State  and  Great  Britain  were  simply  due  to  the 
fact  that  some  members  of  the  Cabinet  had  given 
orders  to  their  brokers  to  buy  up  for  them  all  South 
African  Stock  the  moment  that  it  fell  to  a  certain 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  71 

figure — on  hearing  this  on  so  excellent  an  authority, 
Mr.  Galniyn  had  felt  so  sure  that  war  was  imminent 
that  he  did  not  hesitate  for  a  moment  in  joining  a 
syndicate  for  the  purchase  of  the  full  cinematograph 
rights  in  the  campaign. 

When  the  war  became  inevitable  he  sold  out  his 
shares  at  a  profit  of  two  hundred  per  cent.,  and  the 
next  week  he  learned  that  the  War  Office  had  pro- 
hibited all  cinematographers  from  joining  the  troops 
ordered  to  South  Africa. 

He  rubbed  his  hands  and  felt  that  he  was  a  born 
financier. 

For  some  months  after,  he  had  been  content,  Am- 
ber knew,  with  very  small  earnings,  consequently  his 
losses  had  been  proportionately  small ;  and  yet  now, 
as  she  lay  back  upon  her  sofa  she  recalled  with  pride 
(she  fancied)  that  he  had  never  written  to  her  a  single 
sonnet.  He  had  never  once  given  expression  to  a 
sentiment  that  would  bear  to  be  construed  into  a  de- 
parture from  the  lines  of  that  friendship  which  was 
the  ideal  of  Plato. 

And  yet  Josephine  could  write  that  "  time-study  " 
suggesting  that  such  an  ideal  was  impracticable  if  not 
absolutely  unattainable  ! 

She  lost  all  patience  with  her  friend. 


CHAPTER  IX 

BEFORE  her  maid  came  to  her  Amber  had  reflected 
also  upon  the  cases  of  Mr.  Guy  Overton  and  Mr. 
Willie  Bateman,  and  the  consciousness  of  the  fact 
that  neither  of  these  young  men  had  tried  (after  the 
first  attempt)  to  make  love  to  her  was  a  source  of  the 
greatest  gratification  to  her.  (To  such  a  point  of 
self-deception  may  the  imagination  of  a  young  woman 
born  in  an  atmosphere  of  science  lead  her.) 

Guy  Overton  was  a  young  man  who  was  certainly 
in  no  need  to  try  the  Stock  Exchange  as  a  means  of 
livelihood.  He  was  the  only  son  of  Richard  Over- 
ton,  the  once  well-known  Australian,  who  had  been 
accidentally  killed  when  acting  as  his  own  Steve- 
dore beside  the  hold  of  one  of  his  steamers.  Guy 
had  inherited  from  this  excellent  father  a  business 
which  he  had  speedily  sold  for  a  trifle  over  half  a  mil- 
lion, and  a  spirit  of  thrift  which  was  very  unusual, 
people  said,  on  the  part  of  the  idle  son  of  a  self-made 
man — a  self-made  man  is  a  man  who  has  made  him- 
self wealthy  at  the  expense  of  others. 

It  was  a  great  disappointment  to  his  many  friends 
to  find  out,  as  they  did  very  soon  after  his  father's 
death,  that  young  Mr.  Overton  was  in  no  way  dis- 
posed to  fling  his  money  about  in  the  light-hearted 
way  characteristic  of  the  youth  who  becomes  a  prodi- 
gal by  profession.  He  could  not  see,  he  said,  why 

72 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  73 

he  should  buy  spavined  horses  simply  because  he  was 
half  a  millionaire.  Of  course  he  knew  it  was  an  un- 
derstood thing  that  spavined  horses  were  to  be  got  rid 
of  upon  light-hearted  aspiring  sons  of  fathers  with 
humble  beginnings  in  life;  but  he  rather  thought  that, 
for  the  present  at  least,  he  would  try  to  pass  his  time 
apart  from  the  cheering  companionship  of  the  spavined 
horse. 

And  then  as  regards  the  purchase  of  that  couple  of 
cases  of  choice  Manila  cigars — the  hemp  yarn  which 
entered  largely  into  their  composition  undoubtedly 
did  come  from  Manila — he  expressed  the  opinion  to 
the  friend  who  had  thoughtfully  suggested  the  trans- 
action, that,  until  he  felt  more  firmly  on  his  feet  in 
carrying  out  the  role  of  the  complete  prodigal  he 
would  struggle  to  repress  his  natural  tendency  to 
smoke  the  sweepings  of  the  rope  walks  of  the  Philip- 
pine Islands. 

In  short  young  Mr.  Overton  was  fortunate  enough 
to  obtain,  not  by  slow  degrees,  but  in  a  single  month 
after  his  father's  death,  a  sound  practical  reputation 
for  being  a  skinflint. 

It  was  his  study  to  justify  all  that  was  said  of  him 
by  his  disappointed  friends  in  respect  of  the  closeness 
of  his  pockets. 

He  lived  in  chambers  and  kept  no  manservant. 

Why  should  he  pay  a  hundred  a  year — sixty  pounds 
in  wages  and,  say,  forty  in  board  and  lodging — for 
having  his  trousers  properly  stretched,  he  asked  of 
those  friends  of  his  who  were  ready  to  recommend  to 


74  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

him  several  trustworthy  menservants.  He  rather 
thought  that  it  would  pay  him  better  to  buy  a  new 
pair  of  trousers  every  week.  He  knew  a  place  where 
you  could  buy  a  capital  pair  of  trousers  for  thirteen 
and  six. 

He  jobbed  a  horse. 

He  couldn't  see  why  he  should  have  a  horse  eating 
its  head  off  in  a  rack-rented  stable  necessitating  the 
keeping  of  a  groom  at  twenty-five  shillings  a  week,  when 
he  could  hire  a  horse  for  all  the  riding  that  was  nec- 
essary for  his  health  for  five  shillings  the  two  hours. 

He  knew  of  a  good  restaurant  (Italian)  in  a  back 
street  where  the  maximum  charge  for  dinner  was  half 
a  crown,  and  it  was  to  this  establishment  he  invited 
his  particular  friends  when  the  prodigal's  desire  to 
feast  became  irresistible,  overwhelming  his  better  na- 
ture which  lent  him  promptings  towards  frugality. 

He  recommended  the  Chianti  of  this  secluded  din- 
ing-hall.  It  was  a  good  sound  wine,  with  a  distinct 
tendency  towards  body,  and  not  wholly  without  fla- 
vour— a  flavour  that  one  got  accustomed  to  after  a 
period  of  probation.  Only  it  was  not  well  to  eat 
olives  with  it. 

He  was  on  the  whole  a  pleasant,  shrewd,  unaffected 
man  of  twenty-eight,  when  he  was  presented  to  Am- 
ber, and,  on  her  acceptance  of  a  pretty  little  imitation 
Italian  enamel  from  him,  he  yielded  to  her  influence. 

She  remembered  with  pleasure  (she  thought)  that 
he  had  only  upon  one  occasion  spoken  of  love  in  her 
presence.  Her  recollection  was  not  at  fault.  Only 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  75 

once  had  he  hinted  at  certain  aspirations  on  his  part, 
and  then  he  and  she  had  become  good  friends.  He 
had  submitted  to  her  influence  sufficiently  far  to 
promise  her  that  he  would  cease  to  live  a  life  of  idle 
frugality.  A  course  of  practical  literature  was  what 
she  prescribed  for  him  and  he  at  once  joined  the 
Technical  School  just  started  by  Mr.  Owen  Glen- 
dower  Richmond. 

This  was,  she  reflected,  a  great  triumph  for  Pla- 
tonic friendship,  and  yet  Guy  Overton  was  only  at 
the  other  end  of  the  room  when  Josephine  had  writ- 
ten that  paper  of  hers  in  dispraise  of  this  very  senti- 
ment! 

Amber  was  inclined  to  be  impatient  in  thinking  of 
her  friend's  scarcely  veiled  sneers.  And  then  she  be- 
gan to  think  if  it  might  not  be  possible  that  her  friend 
had  in  her  mind  her  own  case — the  case  of  Josephine 
West  and  Ernest  Clifton — rather  than  the  cases  of 
Amber  Severn  and  Guy  Overton,  Amber  Severn  and 
Arthur  Galmyn,  Amber  Severn  and — yes,  it  was 
quite  possible  that  the  cynicism — if  it  was  cynicism — 
in  the  "  time  study  "  was  prompted  by  the  real  feel- 
ing of  the  writer  in  regard  to  her  relations  with  Mr. 
Ernest  Clifton. 

The  reflection  had  its  consolations ;  but  Amber 
thought  she  loved  her  friend  Josephine  too  dearly  to 
be  consoled  at  her  expense.  Though  she  herself  was, 
she  fancied,  perfectly  happy  in  experimentalising,  so 
to  speak,  in  the  science  of  friendship  she  was  too 
wise  to  assume  that  her  friend  would  be  equally  well 


76  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

satisfied  to  attain  such  results  as  she,  Amber,  had 
achieved. 

She  was  led  to  ask  herself  if  it  was  possible  that 
Josephine  was  actually  in  love  with  Mr.  Ernest 
Clifton. 

And  then  she  went  on  to  ask  herself  if  it  was  pos- 
sible that  Mr.  Ernest  Clifton  was  in  love  with  Jo- 
sephine West. 

Without  coming  to  a  conclusion  in  her  considera- 
tion of  either  question,  she  knew  that  if  Josephine 
really  loved  that  particular  man,  her  views  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Platonic  friendship  might  be  pretty  much  as 
she  had  defined  them — precipitating  the  acid  of  cyni- 
cism at  present  held  in  solution  in  the  series  of  phrases 
written  down  on  the  paper. 

Amber  had  now  and  again  suspected  that  between 
Josephine  and  Mr.  Clifton  there  existed  a  stronger 
feeling  than  that  of  mere  friendship.  But  Josephine 
had  said  no  word  to  her  on  this  subject,  and  certainly 
none  of  their  common  friends  had  said  anything  that 
tended  to  strengthen  her  suspicions.  Still  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  engagement  of  some  of  her  ac- 
quaintance had  invariably  come  upon  her  with  sur- 
prise, a  fact  which  proved  to  her — for  she  was  thor- 
oughly logical  and  always  ready  to  draw  faithful  de- 
ductions even  to  her  own  disadvantage — that  she  had 
not  observed  with  any  great  care  the  phenomena  of 
love  in  the  embryotic  state  and  its  gradual  growth 
towards  the  idiotic  state.  Things  had  been  going  on 
under  her  very  eyes  without  her  perceiving  them,  in 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  77 

regard  to  other  young  men  and  maidens,  so  that  it  was 
quite  possible  that  Josephine  had  come,  without 
Amber's  knowing  anything  of  the  matter,  to  enter- 
tain a  feeling  of  tenderness  for  Ernest  Clifton,  and 
had  written  in  that  spirit  of  cynical  raillery  on  the 
subject  of  Platonic  friendship.  Of  course  if  this 
were  so  and  if  at  the  same  time  Ernest  Clifton  had 
given  her  no  sign  that  he  was  affected  towards  her  in 
the  same  way,  that  circumstance  would  not  of  itself 
be  sufficient  (Amber  knew)  to  prevent  Josephine's 
taking  a  cynical  view  of  the  question  that  had  formed 
the  subject  of  the  "  time  study  "  at  the  Technical 
School. 

****** 

It  was  at  this  point  in  her  consideration  of  the 
whole  question  that  her  maid  opened  the  door  gently 
and  began  to  make  preparations  for  her  toilet.  Her 
father  had  not  yet  perfected  his  machinery  to  dis- 
charge the  offices  of  a  maid.  Where  was  the  elec- 
trical device  that  would  lace  up  a  dress  behind  ? 

"  I  shall  keep  my  eyes  upon  Joe  and  Mr.  Clifton 
this  evening,  and  perhaps  I  shall  learn  something," 
was  the  thought  of  Amber,  while  her  hair  was  being 
teased  into  the  bewitching  simplicity  of  form  which 
gave  her  a  distinction  of  her  own  at  a  period  when 
some  artificiality  was  making  itself  apparent  in  the 
disposal  of  the  hair.  (It  took  a  great  deal  more  time 
to  achieve  Amber's  simplicity  than  it  did  to  work  out 
the  elaborate  devices  of  the  young  women  who  had 
studied  the  fashion  plate  for  the  month.) 


78  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

In  less  than  an  hour  she  was  driving  with  her 
mother  to  Ranelagh  where  they  were  to  dine  with  one 
Mr.  Shirley,  a  member  of  Parliament  who  was  known 
to  have  aspirations  after  a  place  in  the  Government 
and  who  was  fully  qualified  to  aspire,  being  a  bachelor. 
Amber  knew  that  Josephine  would  be  of  the  party, 
and  she  was  nearly  sure  that  Mr.  Clifton  would  also 
be  present.  When  people  talked  of  Mr.  Clifton  they 
invariably  alluded  to  him  as  a  long-headed  fellow. 
Some  of  the  men  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  knew 
what  he  was  about.  Others  said  that  he  might  be 
looked  on  as  the  leading  exponent  of  the  jumping  cat. 

Amber,  however,  knew  nothing  of  his  ability,  that 
of  all  the  acquaintance  which  Josephine  and  she  had 
in  common,  Mr.  Clifton  was  the  man  of  whom  Jo- 
sephine spoke  most  seldom.  It  was  on  this  account 
she  had  a  suspicion  that  he  might  be  held  in  some 
manner  responsibly  accountable  for  the  tone  of  Jo- 
sephine's "  time  study." 

The  lawn  at  Ranelagh  was  crowded  on  this  par- 
ticular Sunday,  for  the  June  gloom  that  had  prevailed 
during  the  three  preceding  days  had  vanished,  and  the 
evening  sunshine  was  making  everything  lovely.  The 
general  opinion  that  prevailed  was  that  the  pretty  way 
in  which  the  guests  of  the  sun  had  dressed  themselves 
to  greet  him  made  it  worth  his  while,  so  to  speak,  to 
shine,  on  the  same  principle  that  a  host  and  hostess 
cannot  but  be  put  into  a  smiling  state  of  mind  when 
their  friends  have  arrived  to  do  them  honour  in  their 
very  best. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  79 

The  brilliant  green  of  the  lawn  reflected  the  great- 
est credit,  people  thought,  upon  the  good  taste  of  Na- 
ture in  providing  a  background  for  all  the  tints  of  all 
the  fabrics  that  glowed  upon  it.  And  the  conscious- 
ness that  their  efforts  to  clothe  themselves  tastefully 
were  reciprocated  by  the  sun  and  the  summer  was 
very  gratifying  to  a  considerable  portion  of  the  crowd, 
who  perhaps  had  their  own  reasons  for  thinking  of 
themselves  as  included  in  the  general  scheme  of  Na- 
ture. They  could  not  imagine  any  scheme  of  Nature 
independent  enough  to  ignore  a  display  of  the  shim- 
mer of  satin  or  a  flutter  of  muslin. 

And  this  was  why  Amber  thought  she  had  never 
seen  together  so  many  well-satisfied  faces  as  those 
among  which  she  moved  down  the  lawn  to  the  soft 
music  of  the  band.  And  amongst  all  the  well-satis- 
fied faces  not  one  wore  this  expression  more  airily 
than  the  face  of  Guy  Overton — yes,  when  she  ap- 
peared. The  face  of  Mr.  Randolph  Shirley,  in  wel- 
coming his  guests,  also  glowed  with  satisfaction — self- 
satisfaction.  An  aspiring  politician  used  long  ago  to 
be  satisfied  when  he  got  his  foot  on  the  first  rung  of 
the  ladder  ;  but  the  lift  system  has  long  ago  superseded 
the  outside  ladder.  A  politician  of  to-day  has  no 
idea  of  climbing  up  rung  by  rung,  he  expects  to  enter 
the  lift  in  the  lobby  and  taking  a  seat  among  cush- 
ions, to  be  rumbled  up  to  the  top  floor  by  pulling  a 
rope. 

The  correct  working  of  this  system  is  altogether  de- 
pendent upon  one's  knowledge  of  the  right  rope  to 


8o  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

pull ;  but  Mr.  Shirley  was  beginning  to  know  the 
ropes  ;  so  he  was  pleased  to  welcome  Miss  West, 
the  daughter  of  an  under  secretary  who  was  almost 
certain  of  a  chief  secretaryship  before  the  end  of  the 
year. 

It  was  while  Mr.  Shirley  was  welcoming  Miss 
West  and  her  mother  that  Guy  Overton  brought  up 
to  Amber  a  man  with  a  very  brown  face,  saying : 

"  I  want  to  present  to  you  my  friend  Pierce  Win- 
wood,  whom  I  was  speaking  of  a  while  ago — the 
cornstalk,  you  know." 

"  I  know.     I  shall  be  delighted,"  said  Amber. 

He  brought  the  man  forward  ;  he  looked  about  the 
same  age  as  Guy  himself,  and  Amber  expressed  to  his 
face  something  of  the  delight  which  she  felt  to  meet 
him.  He  was  not  quite  so  fluent  when  he  opened  his 
lips :  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  seemed  to  be  shy  almost 
to  a  point  of  embarrassment,  and  to  find  that  the  act 
of  changing  his  stick  from  one  hand  to  the  other  and 
then  treating  it  as  a  pendulum  not  only  failed  to  re- 
lieve his  embarrassment,  but  was  actually  a  source  of 
embarrassment  to  people  on  each  side  of  him. 

Amber  wondered  if  it  might  not  be  possible  for  her 
to  add  this  young  man  to  her  already  long  list  of  those 
whom  she  was  influencing  for  their  own  good, 
through  the  medium  of  a  colourless  friendship. 


CHAPTER  X 

"  I  AM  so  glad  to  meet  you,  Mr.  Winwood,"  she 
said.  "  Mr.  Overton  mentioned  that  he  thought 
your  father  was  acquainted  with  mine  long  ago." 

"  I  was  under  that  impression — in  fact,  I  am  nearly 
sure — however " 

Amber  gave  him  a  chance  of  finishing  his  sentence  ; 
but  he  did  not  take  advantage  of  her  offer. 

"  You  think  that  it  is  possible  he  may  have  made  a 
mistake  ?  "  she  said. 

He  did  not  answer  immediately.  He  followed 
with  his  eyes  the  irritating  sweep  of  his  Malacca 
cane. 

"  I  should  like  you  to  ask  Sir  Creighton  if  he  has 
any  recollection  of  my  father  before  I  make  any 
further  claims,"  he  said,  suddenly  looking  at  her 
straight  in  the  face. 

u  I  have  already  done  so,"  said  Amber. 

He  was  so  startled  that  he  coloured  beneath  the 
brown  surface  of  his  skin.  The  effect  was  a  pictur- 
esque one. 

"  And  he  said  that  he  remembered — that " 

"  He,  said  that  we  should  ask  you  to  dinner." 

"  Then  that's  all  right,"  put  in  Guy  Overton,  for 
he  could  not  but  notice  the  expression  of  disappoint- 
ment on   the   face  of  the  Australian.     And  when  he 
noticed  that  expression,  of  course  Amber  noticed  it. 
81 


82  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  We  hope  that  you  will  come  and  dine  with  us, 
Mr.  Winwood,"  she  said. 

u  That  is  how  things  begin — and  end,  in  England, 
I  think,"  cried  Winwood  with  a  laugh  that  had  a  note 
of  contempt  in  its  ring.  "  A  dinner  is  supposed  to  do 
duty  for  welcome  as  well  as  for  conge.  I  am  always 
wondering  which  of  the  two  every  invitation  that  I 
get  is  meant  to  be — a  welcome  or  the  other.  I  knew 
a  man  who  used  to  say  that  an  invitation  to  dinner  in 
England  is  the  height  of  inhospitality." 

"I  say,  that's  a  bit  of  freehand  drawing,  isn't  it  ?  " 
said  Guy.  "  You  seem  to  have  left  your  manners  in 
the  unclaimed  luggage  department,  Winwood.  Be- 
sides— well,  I  give  a  little  dinner  to  my  friends  now 
and  again — yes,  in  the  Frangipanni :  the  only  place 
where  you  get  the  real  macaroni  in  London.  Their 
Chianti  is  really  not  half  bad,  when  you  get " 

"  I  understand  exactly  what  Mr.  Winwood  means, 
and  I  quite  agree  with  him :  a  dinner  is  the  most  cordial 
form  of  inhospitality,"  said  Amber.  "  But  if " 

"  I  really  must  ask  your  pardon,  Miss  Severn," 
interposed  Winwood.  "  I  did  not  mean  quite 
that " 

"  You  meant  that  you  gathered  from  what  I  said 
that  my  father  had  no  recollection  of  yours." 

"  Exactly." 

"Then  you  were — not  quite  right.  My  father 
said  he  was  sure  that — that — yes,  that  you  were  cer- 
tain to  be  able  to  convince  him  that  he  knew  your 
father." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  83 

"  Ah !  " 

"  I  shall  ask  my  mother  to  send  you  a  card  for — 
but  I  suppose  you  are  like  the  rest  of  us :  you  need  at 
least  a  month's  notice  ?  " 

"  I  only  need  a  day's  notice,  Miss  Severn." 

"  You  shall  have  a  week  at  the  least." 

"  And  you  can  get  up  your  affidavits  in  the  mean' 
time,"  suggested  Mr.  Overton. 

"  I  think  I  shall  convince  Sir  Creighton  of  my 
identity  without  the  adventitious  aid  of  affidavits," 
said  Winwood. 

"  My  solicitor — an  excellent  chap,  and  so  cheap  ! 
— says  that  it  is  only  people  who  know  nothing  about 
the  law  courts  who  say  that  there  is  no  other  form  of 
perjury  except  an  affidavit.  He  once  knew  a  man 
who  made  an  affidavit  that  turned  out  to  be  true, 
though  no  one  believed  it  at  the  time." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Mr.  Shirley  came  up  and 
took  away  Winwood  to  present  him  to  Miss  West, 
explaining  that  he  had  arranged  his  table  so  that  he 
was  to  sit  next  to  Miss  West. 

"  I  hope  that  he  is  putting  me  beside  you,"  said 
Mr.  Overton  with  a  look  of  longing  that  is  not 
strictly  according  to  Plato.  He  now  and  again  made 
these  lapses.  They  were  very  irritating  to  Amber 
(she  thought). 

But  his  hope  in  regard  to  the  regulation  of  the  table 
was  not  destined  to  be  realised  for  Mr.  Shirley 
brought  up  to  her  a  young  man  who  was  the  son  of  a 
marquis  and  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  as  well — Mr. 


84  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

Shirley  knew  how  to  choose  his  guests  and  how  to 
place  them  so  well. 

"  I  have  asked  Lord  Lullworth  to  sit  beside  you, 
Miss  Severn,"  he  said,  and  immediately  went  off  to 
welcome  the  last  two  of  his  guests  who  were  coming 
down  the  lawn. 

So  that  it  was  to  a  certain  Miss  Craythorpe — she 
was  the  daughter  of  the  under  secretary  of  the  an- 
nexation department  (Mr.  Shirley  had  reduced  the 
disposal  of  his  guests  to  an  exact  science) — that  Guy 
had  an  opportunity  of  the  remarkable  chance  offered 
to  him  the  day  before — the  chance  of  backing  at  a 
theatre  a  comedy  by  a  dramatist  who  had  made  four- 
teen consecutive  failures  at  London  theatres  alone. 
But  although  the  agent  of  the  actor  manager  who  had 
just  acquired  for  a  considerable  sum  of  money  the 
rights  of  the  new  comedy  had  pointed  out  to  him  that 
it  was  almost  sure  to  be  a  success,  the  fact  being  that 
it  was  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility  for  any 
dramatist  to  make  fifteen  consecutive  failures,  he  had 
decided  to  decline  the  offer. 

"  I  prefer  to  spend  my  money  myself,"  this  possi- 
ble patron  of  art  explained  to  the  young  woman  as 
soon  as  he  had  settled  down  in  his  chair  beside  her. 

Miss  Craythorpe  thought  him  very  amusing  and 
even  went  the  length  of  saying  so  :  she  had  been  told 
that  Mr.  Overton  had  at  least  half  a  million  of  a 
fortune.  She  had  also  heard  it  mentioned  casually 
that  he  was  not  given  to  spending  his  money.  This 
information  was  stimulating. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  85 

And  all  the  time  that  Amber  Severn  was  pretend- 
ing to  give  all  attention  to  the  description  of  the  polo 
match  of  the  day  before  which  was  given  to  her  by 
the  young  man  next  to  her,  she  was  looking  across 
the  table  at  Ernest  Clifton  wondering  if  he  was  wish- 
ing that,  instead  of  being  by  the  side  of  Josephine's 
mother,  he  were  by  the  side  of  Josephine  herself. 
She  also  looked  down  the  table  to  where  Josephine 
was  sitting  and  wondered  if  she  was  wishing  that  she 
were  by  the  side  of  Ernest  Clifton  instead  of  that 
rather  abrupt  Mr.  Pierce  Winwood. 

She  was  of  the  opinion,  being  something  of  a  philos- 
opher with  more  than  the  average  philosopher's  ex- 
perience, that  society  is  usually  made  up  of  people 
who  are  evermore  longing  to  be  by  the  side  of  other 
people ;  and  that  what  is  meant  by  good  manners  is 
trying  to  appear  content  with  the  people  who  have 
been  placed  beside  you. 

Josephine  certainly  had  good  manners;  she  seemed 
to  be  more  than  content  with  Mr.  Winwood.  She 
seemed  actually  to  be  interested  in  his  conversation — 
nay  absorbed ;  and  as  for  Ernest  Clifton — well, 
Amber  knew  enough  of  men  and  women  to  be  well 
aware  of  the  fact  that  if  Ernest  Clifton  was  full  of 
longing  to  be  by  the  side  of  Josephine  his  first  im- 
pulse would  be  to  make  himself  as  agreeable  as  possi- 
ble to  Josephine's  mother. 

And  this  was  just  what  Ernest  Clifton  was  doing. 
He  was  one  of  those  clever  people  who  are  actually 
better  pleased  to  have  a  chance  of  being  agreeable  to 


86  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

the  mother  than  to  the  daughter,  knowing  that  the 
mother  may  be  captured  by  the  art  of  being  agreeable, 
whereas  the  daughter  is  rarely  influenced  by  this 
rarest  of  the  arts. 

And  then  Amber,  somewhat  to  her  own  surprise, 
ceased  to  give  any  attention  to  the  people  at  the  other 
side  of  the  table  or  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  for 
she  found  herself  constrained  to  give  all  her  attention 
to  Lord  Lullworth,  and  his  polo.  She  found  that  he 
had  at  his  command  a  phraseology  which  without  be- 
ing highly  scientific  was  extremely  picturesque,  and 
besides  that,  he  hated  Mr.  Cupar.  Mr.  Cupar  was 
the  novelist  who  wrote  with  the  shriek  of  a  street 
preacher,  and  was  for  one  season  widely  discussed. 

A  common  enemy  constitutes  a  bond  of  friendship 
far  more  enduring  than  any  other  the  wit  of  man, 
money,  or  woman,  can  devise ;  so  that  after  Lord 
Lullworth  had  pointed  out  to  her  some  of  the  ridicu- 
lous mistakes  which  Mr.  Cupar  had  made  with  all 
the  ostentation  of  a  great  teacher — mistakes  about 
horses  that  a  child  would  never  have  fallen  into,  and 
mistakes  about  the  usages  of  society  that  no  one  who 
had  ever  seen  anything  decent  would  ever  fall  into — 
she  found  herself  more  than  interested  in  Lord  Lull- 
worth,  and  by  no  means  felt  inclined  to  share  Guy 
Overton's  regret  that  he,  Guy  Overton,  had  not  been 
beside  her. 

She  began  to  wonder  if  it  might  not  be  possible  to 
annex  Lord  Lullworth  for  his  own  good  as  she  had 
annexed  Guy  Overton,  Arthur  Galmyn,  Willie  Bate- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  87 

man  and  a  few  others,  with  such  profitable  results — 
to  them  all.  She  thought,  after  he  had  agreed  with 
her  on  some  points  that  were  usually  regarded  as  con- 
tentious, that  he  was  perhaps  the  nicest  of  all  the 
men  in  whom  she  had  interested  herself — for  their 
own  good. 

Before  the  glacial  period  of  the  dinner  had  arrived, 
they  had  become  friendly  enough  to  quarrel. 

It  was  over  the  Technical  School  of  Literature. 
She  wondered  if  she  could  induce  him  to  join,  and  he 
assured  her  that  she  needn't  allow  the  question  to  oc- 
cupy her  thoughts  for  a  moment ;  for  there  wasn't 
the  slightest  chance  of  his  joining  so  ridiculous  a 
scheme.  She  replied  warmly  on  behalf  of  the  system 
of  imparting  instruction  on  what  was  undoubtedly 
one  of  the  arts;  and  he  said  he  did  not  believe  in 
machine-made  literature. 

Of  course  she  could  not  be  expected  to  let  this 
pass,  and  she  asked  him  if  he  did  not  believe  in  ma- 
chine-made pictures,  or  machine-made  statues. 

He  told  her  that  he  did ;  and  then  laughed.  She 
gave  him  to  understand  that  she  was  hurt  by  his  de- 
clining to  take  her  seriously  ;  and  she  became  very 
frigid  over  her  ice,  an  attitude  which,  he  assured  her, 
was  one  that  no  girl  anxious  to  do  her  best  for  her 
host  would  assume.  A  right-minded  girl  approached 
her  ice  with  geniality,  thereby  allowing  that  particular 
delicacy  to  " earn  its  living" — that  was  the  phrase 
which  he  employed  and  Amber  thought  it  so  queer 
that  she  allowed  herself  to  glow  once  more  and  so  to 


88  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

give  the  ices  a  chance — a  second  phrase  which  origi- 
nated with  him  when  he  heard  her  laugh. 

By  the  time  the  strawberries  arrived  she  was  sur- 
prised to  find  that  she  was  actually  in  the  position  of 
being  under  the  influence  of  a  man  instead  of  finding 
the  man  drawn  under  her  influence.  This  was  a 
position  to  which  she  was  not  accustomed  ;  therefore  it 
had  a  certain  fascination  of  its  own  and  by  thinking 
of  the  fascination  of  the  position  she  was  foolish 
enough  to  confound  the  man  with  the  position  and  to 
feel  ready  to  acknowledge  that  the  man  was  fascinat- 
ing. 

The  babble  of  the  large  dining-room  almost  over- 
came the  soft  melody  of  the  band  playing  on  the  ter- 
race while  the  dinner  was  proceeding,  but  when  the 
soft  hour  of  cigarettes  had  come,  there  seemed  to  be 
a  general  feeling  that  the  music  was  worthy  of  more  at- 
tention than  had  yet  been  given  to  it.  A  movement 
was  made  to  the  Terrace  by  Mr.  Shirley's  party  and  at 
first  there  was  some  talk  of  wraps.  When,  however, 
one  got  opposite  the  door  and  felt  the  warm  breath 
of  the  perfect  evening  upon  one's  face  no  suggestion 
that  a  wrap  was  needed  was  heard. 

There  was  a  scent  of  roses  and  mignonette  in  the 
air,  and  now  and  again  at  unaccountable  intervals  a 
whifF  of  the  new  made  hay  from  the  paddock.  The 
lawns  were  spread  forth  in  the  softest  of  twilights,  and 
the  trees  beyond  looked  very  black,  for  the  moonlight 
was  too  faint  to  show  even  upon  the  edge  of  the 
bourgeoning  June  foliage. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  89 

"  I  have  got  a  table  for  our  coffee,"  said  Mr. 
Shirley,  "  also  some  chairs  ;  try  if  you  can  pick  up  a 
few  more,  Lord  Lullworth — and  you,  Overtoil — get 
a  couple  of  the  easiest  cane  ones  and  we  shall  be  all 
right." 

Thus  it  was  that  the  sweet  companionship  of  the 
dinner-table  was  broken  up.  Mr.  Shirley  was  too  well 
accustomed  to  dinner-giving  to  fancy  that  one  in- 
variably longs  to  retain  in  the  twilight  and  among  the 
scent  of  roses  the  companion  one  has  had  at  the 
dinner-table.  And  thus  it  was  that  Mr.  Ernest 
Clifton  found  that  the  only  vacant  chair  was  that  be- 
side Josephine — it  took  him  as  much  manoeuvring  to 
accomplish  this  as  would  have  enabled  him,  if  he  had 
been  a  military  commander,  to  convince  the  War  Office 
that  he  was  the  right  man  to  conduct  a  campaign. 

And  thus  it  was  that  Pierce  Winwood  found  him- 
self by  the  side  of  Amber,  while  Lord  Lullworth  had 
fallen  quite  naturally  into  pony  talk  with  a  young 
woman  who,  having  been  left  pretty  well  off  at  her 
father's  death  the  year  before,  had  started  life  on  her 
own  account  with  a  hunting  stable  within  easy  reach 
of  the  Pytchley. 

And  then  the  coffee  came,  with  the  sapphire  gleam 
of  green  Chartreuse  here  and  there,  and  the  topaz 
twinkle  of  a  Benedictine,  and  the  ruby  glow  of  cherry 
brandy.  It  was  all  very  artistic. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THERE  was  a  different  note  in  the  chat  on  the  ter- 
race in  the  twilight  from  that  which  had  prevailed  in 
the  dining-room.  In  the  dining-room  people  had 
seemed  to  be  trying  to  talk  down  the  band,  now  they 
were  talking  with  it.  The  band  was  making  a  very 
sympathetic  accompaniment  to  their  chat — nay,  it 
even  suggested  something  of  a  possible  topic,  for  ; 
was  playing  the  dreamy  strains  of  the  "Roses  of 
Love  "  Valse.  People  could  not  talk  loud  when  that 
delicious  thing  was  wafting  its  melody  round  them — 
ensnaring  their  hearts  with  that  delicate  network  o. 
woven  sounds — breathing  half  hushed  rapture  at  in- 
tervals and  then  glowing  as  the  June  roses  glow  in  a 
passion  that  is  half  a  dream. 

"  I  suppose  you  have  lovelier  places  than  Ranelagh 
in  Australia,"  said  Amber  as  she  leant  back  in  her 
chair.  Pierce  Winwood  was  leaning  forward  in  his. 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  dare  say  there  are  lovelier  places  in 
Australia,"  he  replied.  "  You  see  there's  a  pretty 
fair  amount  of  room  in  Australia  for  places  lovely  and 
the  opposite.  But  there's  no  place  out  there  that's 
just  the  same  as  this  place  here  on  such  an  evening 
as  this.  I  used  to  wonder  long  ago  if  I  should  ever 
see  Ranelagh  under  such  conditions  as  these — dis- 
tinguished men — there  are  some  distinguished  men 
here — and  beautiful  women — music  and  moonlight 

90 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  91 

and  the  scent  of  roses,  and  above  all,  the  conscious- 
ness that  this  is  Home — Home — in  Australia  we 
think  a  good  deal  about  this  England  of  ours.  Peo- 
ple in  England  have  great  pride  in  thinking  of 
Australia  as  their  own,  but  their  pride  is  nothing  com- 
pared to  that  of  the  Australians  in  thinking  of  Eng- 
land as  their  Home." 

"  Of  course  we  are  all  one,"  said  Amber.  "  But 
your  father  could  scarcely  have  told  you  about  Rane- 
lagh  :  it  did  not  exist  in  its  present  form  in  his  day — 
that  is  to  say — oh,  you  see  that  I  am  assuming  that 
he  was  in  Australia  for  a  good  many  years." 

"  I  heard  about  Ranelagh  first  from  a  stock  rider 
on  one  of  my  father's  farms.  He  was  one  of  the 
best  chaps  in  the  world.  He  showed  me  a  prize  or 
two  that  he  had  won  here  in  the  old  days, — his  old 
days  could  not  have  been  more  than  five  or  six  years 
ago.  I  had  also  a  groom  who  used  to  play  polo 
here." 

"  And  people  talk  about  the  days  of  romance  being 
past !  "  said  Amber.  "  I  dare  say  you  could  furnish 
our  school — I  wonder  if  Guy  mentioned  it  to 
you " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  he  told  me  all  about  it." 

"You  could  furnish  the  romance  class  with  some 
capital  plots  to  work  out,  could  you  not  ? " 

u  I  dare  say  I  could  if  I  knew  all  the  circumstances 
that  led  up  to  the  fragments  that  came  under  my 
notice.  But  I  could  not  ask  the  stock  rider  or  the 
groom  how  they  came  to  sell  their  horses  and  settle 


92  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

down  to  live  on  thirty  shillings  a  week  in  a  colony. 
I  could  not  even  ask  either  of  them  what  was  his 
real  name." 

"  I  suppose  that  almost  every  romance  begins  by  a 
change  of  name  ?  " 

He  was  silent  for  some  moments.  Then  he  threw 
away  the  end  of  the  cigar  which  he  had  been  smoking 
and  drank  the  few  drops  of  liqueur  which  remained 
in  his  glass.  He  drew  his  chair  an  inch  or  two  closer 
to  hers  saying  in  a  low  tone  : 

"  It  was  only  a  short  time  before  I  left  the  colony 
that  I  had  brought  under  my  notice  the  elements  of  a 
curious  romance.  Would  you  care  to  hear  it  ?  " 

"I  should  like  very  much.  If  it  is  unfinished  it 
might  make  a  good  exercise  for  Mr.  Richmond  to 
set  for  one  of  his  classes  at  the  school — 'given  the 
romance  up  to  a  certain  point,  required  the  legitimate 
and  artistic  ending ' — that  would  be  the  problem." 

"A  capital  notion,  I  think.  I  should  like  very 
much  myself  to  know  what  the  legitimate  ending 
should  be.  But  I  have  noticed  now  and  again  that 
Fate  is  inclined  to  laugh  at  any  scheme  devised  by 
the  most  astute  of  men.  That  is  to  say  when  we 
have  in  our  possession  what  seems  the  beginning  of  a 
real  romance  Fate  steps  in  and  brings  about  the  most 
disastrous  ending  to  the  story." 

"That  is  nearly  always  what  happens.  It  only 
proves  that  romance  writers  know  a  great  deal  better 
than  Fate  how  to  weave  the  threads  of  a  story  into  a 
finished  fabric." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  93 

"  Ah  !  those  '  accursed  shears  '!...!  won- 
der if  ...  never  mind,  I  will  tell  you  the 
romance  as  far  as  it  came  under  my  notice  and  you 
or  your  literary  adviser — or  perhaps  your  father — but 
I  don't  suppose  that  Sir  Creighton  would  trouble  him- 
self over  a  miniature  romance." 

"  Oh,  wouldn't  he  just  ?  He  reads  nearly  every 
novel  that  comes  out — especially  the  French  ones." 

"  Oh,  then  I  need  not  hesitate  to  ask  you  to  place 
before  him  the  fragment  which  I  acquired  in  the 
colony  less  than  a  year  ago." 

"  It  will  be  a  capital  exercise  for  him — working  out 
the  close  artistically.  The  story  begins  in  England, 
of  course  ?  " 

"  Of  course.  Let  me  think  how  it  does  begin. 
Yes,  it  begins  in  England — at  a  seaport  town.  There 
is  a  shipbuilding  yard.  The  head  of  it  is,  naturally, 
a  close-fisted,  consequently  a  wealthy  man — one  of 
those  men  who  from  insignificant  beginnings  rise  by 
their  own  force  of  character  to  position  of  wealth 
and  influence.  He  has  a  son  and  the  son  has  a 
friend.  The  son  has  acquired  extravagant  habits  and 
his  father  will  not  sanction  them,  nor  will  he  pay  his 
debts  a  second  time,  he  declares — he  has  already  paid 
them  once.  When  the  relations  between  the  father 
and  the  son  are  in  this  way  strained,  the  son's  friend 
is  suddenly  taken  sick,  and  after  a  week  or  two  the 
doctors  in  attendance  think  it  their  duty  to  tell  him 
that  he  cannot  possibly  recover — that  they  cannot 
promise  him  even  a  month's  life.  The  man — he 


94  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

must  have  been  a  young  man — resigns  himself  to  his 
fate  and  his  friend,  the  son  of  the  shipbuilder  comes 
to  bid  him  farewell.  In  doing  so,  he  confesses  that 
in  what  he  calls  a  moment  of  madness,  he  was  in- 
duced to  forge  the  name  of  the  firm  on  certain  docu- 
ments on  which  he  raised  money,  but  that  the 
discovery  of  the  forgery  cannot  be  avoided  further 
than  another  fortnight,  and  that  will  mean  ruin  to 
him.  The  dying  man  suggests — he  is  actually  mag- 
nanimous enough — idiotic  enough — to  suggest  that  he 
himself  should  confess  that  he  committed  the  crime. 
That  will  mean  that  his  friend  will  be  exculpated  and 
that  he  himself  will  go  to  the  grave  with  a  lie  on  his 
lips  and  with  the  stigma  of  a  crime  on  his  memory." 

"  And  the  other  man — he  actually  accepted  the 
sacrifice  ?  Impossible  !  " 

"  It  was  not  impossible.  The  impossibility  comes 
in  later  on.  You  see,  Miss  Severn,  the  scheme  ap- 
pears feasible  enough.  One  man  has  only  a  day  or 
two  to  live,  the  other  has  the  chance  of  redeeming 
the  past  and  of  becoming  a  person  of  influence  and 
importance  in  the  world.  Yes,  I  think  the  scheme 
sounded  well,  especially  as  the  real  criminal  solemnly 
swore  to  amend  his  life.  Well,  the  confession  is 
made  in  due  form ;  and  then, — here  is  where  Fate 
sometimes  becomes  objectionable — then — the  dying 
man  ceases  to  die.  Whether  it  was  that  the  doctors 
were  duffers,  or  that  a  more  skilful  man  turned  up  I 
cannot  say — but  the  man  recovered  and  was  arrested 
on  his  own  confession.  The  other  man  being  a 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  95 

kind-hearted  fellow  did  his  best  to  get  his  father  to  be 
merciful ;  but  he  was  not  kind-hearted  enough  to  take 
the  place  in  the  dock  where  his  friend  stood  a  month 
later  to  receive  the  judge's  sentence  for  the  crime 
which  he  had  taken  on  his  own  shoulders." 

"  You  mean  to  say  that  he  was  base  enough  to  see 
his  friend  sentenced  for  the  forgery  which  he  had 
committed  ?  " 

"  That  is  what  happened.  And  to  show  how 
Fate's  jests  are  never  half-hearted,  but  played  out  to 
the  very  end  in  the  finest  spirit  of  comedy,  it  also 
happened  that  the  man  who  was  the  real  criminal  not 
only  saw  that  his  friend  fulfilled  his  part  of  the  com- 
pact which  they  had  made  by  suffering  the  penalty  of 
his  confession,  but  he  himself  was  determined  to  act 
up  to  his  part  in  the  compact,  for  he  so  rigidly  kept 
his  promise  to  amend  his  life,  that  when  his  friend 
was  released  from  gaol  where  he  had  been  confined 
for  more  than  a  year,  he  refused  to  see  him  ;  the  fel- 
low had  actually  come  to  believe  that  he  was  inno- 
cent and  that  the  other  had  been  properly  convicted  !  " 

u  That  is  a  touch  of  nature,  I  think.  And  what 
happened  then  ?  Surely  Nemesis " 

"Nemesis  is  one  of  the  most  useful  properties  of 
the  man  who  weaves  romances  ;  but  sometimes  Na- 
ture dispenses  with  Nemesis.  And  do  you  know, 
Miss  Severn,  I  really  think  that  the  introduction  of 
Nemesis  would  spoil  this  particular  story.  At  any 
rate  I  know  nothing  about  the  part  that  Nemesis 
played  in  this  romance." 


96  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  What,  you  mean  to  say  that  you  know  no  more 
of  the  story  than  what  you  have  told  me  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  think  that  the  story  is  complete  in  it- 
self?" 

"  Not  at  all ;  it  must  have  a  sequel." 

"  Oh,  everybody  knows — your  master  of  the  tech- 
nique of  romance  weaving  will  bear  me  out,  I  am  sure 
— that  the  sequel  to  a  romance  is  invariably  tame  and 
quite  unworthy  of  the  first  part.  That  is  why  I 
would  rather  that  Mr.  Richmond — or  your  father 
tried  his  hand  at  the  sequel  than  I — yes,  I  would  like 
very  much  to  know  what  your  father  thinks  the  se- 
quel should  be." 

"  But  surely  you  know  something  more  of  the  lives 
of  the  two  men,  Mr.  Winwood." 

"  Yes.  I  know  that  the  man  who  suffered  went 
out  to  Australia  and  married  there — as  a  matter  of 
fact  I  got  the  story  from  him — it  was  among  his 
papers  when  he  died  ;  but  I  never  found  out  what  his 
real  name  was,  and  his  papers  failed  to  reveal 
the  name  of  the  other  man  ;  they  only  said  that  he 
had  prospered  in  every  undertaking  to  which  he  set 
his  hand  ;  so  that  you  see  he  was  not  so  unscrupulous 
a  man  as  one  might  be  led  to  suppose ;  he  was  most 
scrupulous  in  adhering  to  his  part  of  the  contract 
which  was,  of  course,  to  lead  a  new  life.  And  this 
shows  the  danger  that  lies  in  ex-parte  stories :  if  one 
only  heard  that  the  man  had  accepted  the  sacrifice  of 
his  friend  on  his  behalf,  one  would  assume  that  he 
was  certainly  without  scruples  ;  whereas  you  see,  he 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  97 

was  as  a  matter  of  fact  most  careful  to  carry  out  the 
terms  of  his  compact.  I  never  heard  his  name 
either." 

There  was  a  pause  of  considerable  duration  before 
Amber  said : 

"  The  story  is  a  curious  one ;  but  I  don't  think  I 
should  do  well  to  submit  it  to  Mr.  Richmond  with  a 
view  of  making  a  class  exercise  out  of  it." 

"  Well,  perhaps  .  .  .  But  I  should  like  you 
to  ask  your  father  if  he  ever  heard  a  similar  story  be- 
fore. If  he  is  so  earnest  a  novel  reader  as  you  say  he 
is,  the  chances  are  that  he  has  come  across  such  a 
plot  as  this,  and  so  will  be  able  to  let  us  know  what 
the  artistic  finish  should  be.  Here  is  Overton.  I 
dare  say  when  he  has  attended  Mr.  Richmond's 
classes  for  a  year  or  two,  he  will  be  in  a  position  to 
say  at  a  moment's  notice  what  the  artistic  conclu- 
sion to  my  story  should  be." 

It  was  only  when  Guy  Overton  dropped  obtrusively 
into  the  chair  nearest  to  her  that  Amber  became 
aware  of  the  fact  that  only  three  or  four  members  of 
Mr.  Shirley's  party  remained  on  the  Terrace. 
Josephine  was  still  seated  in  one  of  the  cane  chairs 
and  Ernest  Clifton  had  come  beside  her.  Lord  Lull- 
worth  and  another  man  were  standing  together  a  lit- 
tle way  off,  still  smoking. 

"  Good  gracious  !  Where  are  the  others  ?  "  cried 
Amber. 

"  They  are  taking  a  final  stroll  on  the  lawn,"  saiH 
Guy.  "  Somebody  suggested  that  it  was  a  bit  chilly 


98  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

and  so  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  catching  cold  they 
are  walking  about  on  the  damp  grass.  You  must 
have  been  absorbed  not  to  notice  them  going.  Has 
Miss  Severn  caught  you  for  the  Technical  School, 
Pierce  ?  " 

"  Miss  Severn  is  just  thinking  that  I  am  a  possible 
candidate  for  the  next  vacant  chair,"  said  Pierce. 

"  A  vacant  chair  ?  You  don't  want  another  chair, 
Ao  you  ?  "  said  Guy.  "  You're  not  so  important  as 
the  chap  that  was  told  by  Lord  Rothschild  or  some- 
body to  take  two  chairs  if  he  was  so  big  an  Injin  as 
he  wanted  to  make  out." 

Pierce  laughed.  The  story  was  an  old  one  even  in 
the  Australian  colonies  and  every  one  knows  that  the 
stories  that  have  become  threadbare  in  England  are 
shipped  off  to  the  colonies  with  the  shape  of  hat  that 
has  been  called  in  and  the  opera  mantle  of  the  year 
before  last. 

"  I  was  thinking  of  the  chair  of  Romance  at  the 
School  of  Literature,"  said  he,  "  but  I  should  be  sorry 
to  interfere  with  your  prospects  if  you  have  an  eye  on 
it  also." 

He  rose  as  Lady  Severn  came  up  by  the  side  of 
Mr.  Shirley. 

Mr.  Shirley  expressed  the  hope  that  Miss  Severn 
had  not  been  bored.  She  looked  so  absorbed  in 
whatever  tale  of  the  bush  Mr.  Winwood  had  been 
telling  her  that  he  felt  sure  she  was  being  bored,  he 
said.  (The  people  to  whom  Mr.  Shirley  was  obliged 
to  be  polite  were  so  numerous  that  he  felt  quite  a  re- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  99 

taxation  in  being  impolite — when  he  could  be  so  with 
impunity — now  and  again.) 

"  I  never  was  bored  in  my  life,  Mr.  Shirley,"  said 
Amber.  "  Bores  are  the  only  people  that  are  ever 
bored.  When  I  hear  a  man  complain  that  he  has 
been  bored  I  know  perfectly  well  that  what  he  means 
is  that  he  hasn't  had  all  the  chances  he  looked  for  of 
boring  other  people." 

"  I  think  we  must  look  for  our  wraps,"  said  Lady 
Severn. 

"  It's  quite  time :  they're  beginning  to  light  the 
Chinese  lanterns,"  said  Guy. 


CHAPTER  XII 

IT  was  while  the  Australian  was  telling  Amber  the 
story  which  had  interested  her  so  greatly  that  Ernest 
Clifton  was  listening  to  something  that  Josephine  had 
to  say  to  him — something  that  caused  him  a  good 
deal  of  spare  thought  all  the  time  he  was  driving 
to  his  rooms  in  St.  James's  Street,  and  even  after 
he  had  settled  himself  in  his  chair  with  a  small 
tumbler  half  filled  with  Apollinaris  on  a  table  at  his 
elbow. 

The  words  that  she  had  spoken  to  him  at  that  time 
of  soft  sounds  and  lights  and  garden  scents  were  not 
such  as  he  had  been  accustomed  to  hear  from  her; 
though  he  could  not  but  acknowledge  to  himself— 
he  now  and  again  acknowledged  something  to  him- 
self; never  to  any  one  else — that  he  had  noticed 
signs  of  readiness  on  her  part  to  say  those  very 
words.  It  had  needed  all  his  adroitness — and  he  had 
usually  a  pretty  fair  share  at  his  command — to  pre- 
vent her  from  saying  them  long  ago. 

"  /  wonder  if  you  know  how  great  a  strain  it  is  upon 
me  to  adhere  to  the  compact  which  we  made  last  year." 

Those  were  the  words  that  she  had  spoken  in  his 
ear  when  the  Terrace  had  become  almost  deserted, 
only  Amber  and  Pierce  Winwood  remaining  in  the 
seats  they  had  occupied  while  drinking  their  coffee, 
and  she  had  spoken  in  so  low  a  tone  that,  even  with 
100 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  101 

the  band  playing  so  soft  and  low  as  it  was,  no  word 
could  be  heard  by  any  one  passing  their  chairs. 

He  had  been  slightly  startled  by  her  words — he 
thought  now  that  he  had  time  to  think  over  the  mat- 
ter, that  perhaps  he  should  have  seemed  when  in  her 
presence  to  have  been  more  startled  than  he  actually 
was.  But  the  fact  was  that  he  had  been  so  startled 
as  to  be  unable  to  discriminate  exactly  how  startled 
he  should  seem. 

It  required  a  trained  intelligence  such  as  his  to 
appreciate  so  delicate  a  train  of  thought  as  this.  He 
felt  that  it  would  have  been  more  flattering  to  her  if 
he  had  seemed  more  surprised  when  she  had  spoken. 
It  would  have  allowed  her  to  feel  that  his  confidence 
in  her  fidelity  was  absolute  and  therefore — the  logic 
was  his — she  would  have  felt  flattered.  When  a 
young  woman  has  secretly  promised  eventually  to 
marry,  and  in  the  meantime  to  love,  a  certain  man, 
and  when  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  of  a  delightful 
day  and  a  tranquillising  dinner  she  confesses  to  him 
that  the  keeping  of  the  "  meantime "  clause  in  her 
compact  subjects  her  to  a  great  strain,  the  man  should 
of  course  seem  greatly  surprised.  If  he  were  to  seem 
otherwise,  he  would  in  effect  be  saying  to  the  girl, 
"  I  took  it  for  granted  that  the  strain  upon  you  would 
be  great." 

He  could  not  accuse  himself  of  any  deficiency  of 
cleverness  in  his  attitude  towards  her  after  she  had 
spoken  that  surprising  sentence.  He  knew  that  there 
was  a  proper  amount  of  feeling  in  the  way  he  breathed 


102  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

a  sibilant  "  H'sh — h'sh  !  "  while  turning  wondering 
eyes  upon  her — their  expression  of  surprise  being  not 
without  a  certain  element  of  pain. 

"  H'sh — for  heaven's  sake — my  dearest !  Oh,  Jo- 
sephine !  But  .  .  .  ah,  you  cannot  mean  that 
—that  .  .  ." 

He  reflected  now  that  those  jerked-out  words — 
those  unfinished  sentences  could  scarcely  have  been 
surpassed  in  effect.  He  hoped  that  she  felt  that  the 
hand  which  he  had  then  laid  upon  hers,  was  trem- 
bling. He  had  meant  that  it  should  tremble.  And 
yet  now  when  he  came  to  think  over  it,  he  was  not 
quite  sure  that  his  hand  should  have  trembled.  It 
was  just  possible  that  a  girl  after  speaking  as  she  had 
spoken,  would  have  been  more  impressed  by  a  thor- 
oughly firm  hand  touching  hers — a  hand  whose  firm- 
ness would  have  given  her  confidence,  compelling 
her  to  realise  the  confidence  which  he  had — well,  in 
himself. 

(He  was  certainly  a  man  of  exquisite  judgment  in 
subtle  shades  of  expression.) 

She  had,  however,  not  withdrawn  her  hand  for 
some  seconds — several  seconds :  the  dusk  had  cast  its 
friendly  and  fascinating  shade  over  them :  the  seem- 
ing incaution  of  his  attitude  was  purely  imaginary. 
No  one  could  see  the  direction  taken  by  his  hand  or 
hers. 

"  I  tell  you,  it  is  the  truth,"  she  had  said,  with- 
drawing her  hand.  "  It  is  a  great  strain  that  you  have 
put  upon  me,  Ernest.  I  sometimes  feel  like  a  crim- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  103 

inal — exactly  like  a  criminal — in  the  presence  of  my 
father  and  my  mother." 

"  Ah,  I  thought  that  you  saw  with  my  eyes,"  he 
said,  and  the  pained  expression  in  his  voice  increased. 
"  I  thought  that  we  agreed  that  it  would  be  madness 
— your  father — he  would  never  give  his  consent — you 
yourself  said  so.", 

"  I  said  so — I  admit ;  but — please  don't  think  that 
I  want  to — to — break  it  off — oh,  no  ;  I  only  mean  to 
say  that — that — well,  I  have  said  all  that  I  mean  to 
say — it  is  a  great  strain  upon  me  and  I  sometimes 
feel  very  miserable  about  it.  You  can  understand 
that  it  should  be  so,  Ernest." 

"  I  can  understand,  dearest — heaven  knows  that  I 
feel  how " 

"  I  don't  know  how  I  ever  came  to  agree  to — to 
all  that  you  put  upon  me — I  really  don't."  She  had 
actually  interrupted  him  with  her  vehemence.  It 
seemed  as  if  she  had  not  heard  that  he  had  begun  to 
speak. 

And  her  eyes  were  turned,  he  could  see,  in  the  di- 
rection of  Pierce  Winwood — the  man  who  had  sat 
beside  her  at  dinner  and  who  was  now  sitting  beside 
Amber  Severn. 

"You  agreed  to  my  suggestion  because — well,  be- 
cause you  knew  what  you  still  know — that  is,  that 
you  loved  a  man  whose  hope  it  is  to  become  worthy 
of  you,  Josephine.  I  admit  that  I  had  no  right  to  ask 
you  to  listen  to  me — to  hear  me  tell  you  that  I  loved 
you — when  I  had  nothing  to  offer  you — nothing  but 


104  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

years  of  waiting — years  of  struggle — years  of  hope. 
And  now  .  .  .  Josephine,  do  you  wish  to  be  re- 
leased from  your  part  in  the  compact  which  we  made 
a  year  ago  ? " 

"  No,  no ;  I  do  not  wish  to  be  released.  What, 
can  it  be  possible  that  you  have  so  misunderstood  me 
— that  you  fancy  I  am  the  sort  of  woman  who  does 
not  know  her  own  mind — her  own  heart  from  one 
day  to  another  ?  " 

"I  know  that  you  are  steadfastness  itself — only — 
if  I  have  placed  you  in  an  equivocal  position — if  you 
feel  that  the  years  of  waiting  .  .  .  what  I  feel  ex- 
actly, my  dearest,  is  that  it  would  be  better  for  both 
of  us  to  separate  now  than  for " 

"  You  cannot  understand  much  of  my  nature  if  you 
think  for  a  moment  that,  after  giving  you  my  promise, 
I  would  ask  you  to  free  me  from  all  that  the  giving 
of  that  promise  entailed.  But  I  was  thinking  that  it 
might  be  better  for  us  to  be  frank." 

"  Have  I  ever  kept  anything  from  you  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  it  might  be  better  if  you  had  gone  to 
my  father  and  told  him  what  were  your  hopes — your 
prospects — told  him  that  I  had  given  you  my  promise, 
and  that  we  meant  that  nothing  should  come  between 
us." 

"  That  would  have  separated  us  in  a  moment — you 
agreed  with  me." 

"  It  might  have  prevented  our  meeting  and  corre- 
sponding ;  but  if  we  were  sure  of  ourselves,  would  it 
have  separated  us  in  reality  ?  The  only  separation 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  105 

possible  would  be  brought  about  by  either  of  us  lov- 
ing some  one  else ;  and  that  we  know  would  be  im- 
possible." 

"  Dearest,  that  is  the  confession  which  comes  from 
my  heart  daily — hourly — giving  me  strength  to  anni- 
hilate time  and  space,  so  that  the  years  of  our  waiting 
seem  no  more  than  hours." 

"  Oh,  I  know  my  own  heart,  Ernest ;  and  that  is 
why  I  feel  that  what  I  say  is  true  :  even  though  my 
father  should  refuse  to  listen  to  us,  we  should  still  not 
be  separated.  In  fact  I  really  feel  that  there  would 
not  be  so  great  a  barrier  between  us  as  there  is  now 
when  we  meet." 

"  I  think  I  know  how  you  feel,"  he  said  ;  but  he 
had  not  the  smallest  notion  of  how  she  felt.  Barrier  ? 
What  barrier  was  she  thinking  of?  He  had  not  the 
smallest  notion  of  what  was  in  her  mind — or  for  that 
matter,  her  heart. 

And  it  seemed  that  she  knew  this  for  she  made  an 
attempt  to  explain  herself. 

"  I  mean  that  the  secret  which  we  share  together 
forms  a  barrier  between  us — a  sort  of  barrier.  I  feel 
every  time  that  I  see  you,  with  my  mother  sitting  by 
not  knowing  the  compact  which  we  have  made — 
every  one  else  too  sitting  by,  having  no  idea  that  we 
are  otherwise  than  free — I  feel  that  I  am  treating 
them  badly — that  I  am  mean — underhanded — deceit- 
ful." 

"Ah,  my  Josephine  .  .  .  Do  you  fancy  that 
any  one  suspects  ? — your  friend,  Miss  Severn  ? — she 


io6  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

is  clever — she  has  been  saying  something  that  has 
frightened  you  ? " 

"  Oh,  cannot  you  even  see  that  it  would  be  a  posi- 
tive relief  if  any  one  was  to  suspect  anything — if  any 
one  were  to  speak  out  ?  " 

"  Good  heavens !  What  a  state  of  nervousness 
you  must  have  allowed  yourself  to  fall  into  when  you 
would  feel  ruin  to  be  a  relief  to  you." 

"  Ruin  ? " 

"  Ruin,  I  say ;  because  I  know  that  in  such  a  case 
I  should  have  no  chance  of  getting  your  father's  con' 
sent — yes,  and  not  only  so :  when  he  came  to  learn 
the  truth — to  be  made  aware  of  my  presumption  he 
would  turn  his  party  against  me,  and  my  career  would 
be  ruined.  Do  you  think  that  I  am  not  capable  of 
doing  something  in  the  world,  Josephine,  that  you 
would  stand  by  and  see  my  career  ruined  ?  " 

"  I  have  every  belief  in  your  ability,  only — I  am 
not  sure  that  a  man  should  think  so  much  of  his 
career — no,  I  don't  mean  that — I  only  mean  that  pru- 
dence and — and  a  career  may  be  bought  too  dearly." 

"  Prudence — bought  too  dear  ?  " 

"  I  wonder  if,  after  all,  I  am  so  very  different  from 
other  women  in  thinking  that  love  is  more  to  be  pre- 
ferred than  a  career." 

"  Of  course  it  is,  my  dearest ;  but — heavens  above, 
Josephine,  would  you  do  me  the  injustice  to  believe 
that  I  would  ask  you  to  make  what  all  the  world 
would  call  an  idiotic  match — well,  at  least  an  im- 
prudent match  ?  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  107 

"  Imprudence  ?  Who  is  there  that  can  say  what  is 
a  prudent  marriage  or  what  is  an  imprudent !  If  peo- 
ple love  each  other  truly  .  .  .  psh?. !  I  have 
actually  fallen  into  the  strain  of  that  detestable  person 
— the  Other  Woman.  I  dare  say  that  you  are  right 
and  I  am  wrong.  You  see,  you  are  a  man  and  can 
reason  these  things  out — prudent  marriages  and  so 
forth  ;  whereas  I  am  only  a  woman — I  cannot  reason 
— I  cannot  even  think — I  can  only  feel." 

"  Thank  heaven  for  that,  Josephine.  Ah,  believe 
me,  I  have  looked  at  this  matter  from  every  stand- 
point, and  I  long  ago  came  to  see  that  there  was  noth- 
ing for  it  but  to  do  as  we  are  doing.  Believe  me,  my 
dear  girl,  if  you  were  content  to  marry  me  to-morrow 
just  as  I  am,  I  would  not  be  content  to  accept  such  a 
sacrifice  on  your  part.  And  for  heaven's  sake,  dear- 
est, do  not  let  any  one  suspect  that  there  exists  be- 
tween us  this — this  understanding.  Ah,  Josephine, 
you  will  agree  with  me  in  thinking  that  prudence  is 
everything." 

"  Everything  ?  " 

"  Everything — next,  of  course,  to  love.  But  above 
all,  no  one  must  be  led  to  have  the  least  sus- 
picion   " 

"  Oh,  have  I  not  been  prudence  itself  up  to  the 
present  ? "  There  was  a  suspicion  in  her  voice — a 
suspicion  of  scorn, — he  remembered  that  distinctly  as 
he  sat  in  his  rooms  recalling  the  whole  scene  an  hour 
after  it  had  been  enacted.  With  that  note — that  half 
tone  of  scorn — their  little  chat  ceased,  for  Guy  Over- 


io8  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

ton  had  come  up  and  after  him  Lady  Severn  and  Mr. 
Shirley,  so  that  all  that  remained  for  him  to  do  was  to 
give  a  tender  pressure  with  a  look  of  courteous  care- 
lessness that  was  meant  to  prevent  the  possibility  of 
any  one  with  eyes  fancying  that  there  was  tenderness 
in  his  pressure  of  Miss  West's  fingers. 

And  now  he  was  asking  himself  the  question : 

"  Who  is  the  Other  Man  ?  " 

Ernest  Clifton  had  a  pretty  good  working  acquaint- 
ance with  the  motives  of  men  and  women — not  per- 
haps, quite  so  complete  an  acquaintance  with  these 
motives  as  he  fancied  he  had,  but  still  a  very  fair 
knowledge;  and  therefore  he  was  asking  himself  that 
question : 

"  Who  is  the  Other  Man  ?  " 

He  had  had  a  good  deal  of  trouble  persuading 
Josephine  during  the  preceding  autumn  to  agree  to 
engage  herself  to  marry  him.  It  had  not  been  done 
in  a  minute.  He  had  never  before  had  such  difficulty 
persuading  a  girl  to  give  him  such  a  promise.  She  was 
what  physicians  call  "  an  obstinate  case."  Hers  was 
psychologically  an  obstinate  case;  but  she  had  yielded 
at  last  to  his  treatment,  and  had  given  him  her 
promise. 

He  flattered  himself  that  it  was  his  own  cleverness 
— his  own  cleverness  of  argument — his  own  person- 
ality, for  was  not  cleverness  part  of  his  personality  ? 
— that  had  brought  her  to  perceive  that  she  would  be 
doing  well  to  promise  to  marry  him  and  at  the  same 
time  to  keep  that  promise  a  secret  from  her  own 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  109 

father  and  mother  and  all  the  world  besides.  He  re- 
membered how  he  had  impressed  her  by  his  story  of  his 
early  struggles.  He  had  appealed  to  her  imagination  by 
telling  her  how  humble  his  career  had  been  in  its  be- 
ginning— how,  being  the  third  son  of  a  doctor  in  a 
village  in  Warwickshire,  he  had  been  thrown  on  the 
world  to  shift  for  himself  when  he  was  sixteen  years 
of  age — how  he  had,  while  working  as  a  reporter  on 
the  staff  of  a  Birmingham  newspaper,  starved  him- 
self in  order  to  have  money  enough  to  pass  University 
examinations  and  take  a  degree  and,  later  on,  to  get 
called  to  the  Bar.  He  told  her  how  he  had  given  up 
much  of  his  time  when  practically  behind  the  scenes 
at  Birmingham  to  the  study  of  the  political  machinery 
of  a  great  party,  with  the  result  that  he  had  worked 
himself  into  the  position  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Or- 
ganisation, becoming  a  power  in  his  political  party — 
a  man  with  whom  in  critical  times,  the  Head  of  the 
Cabinet  had  conferred  before  venturing  upon  legisla- 
tion that  might  have  a  tendency  to  alienate  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  his  friends. 

And  Josephine  had  listened  to  him,  and  had  fully 
appreciated  his  contention  that  for  such  a  man  as  he 
hoped  to  become,  the  choice  of  a  wife  was  a  matter 
of  supreme  importance.  He  had  given  her  to  under- 
stand that  his  ideal  woman  was  one  to  whom  her  hus- 
band would  apply  for  counsel  when  he  needed  it — one 
who  would  be  her  husband's  right  hand  in  all  matters. 
He  had  seen  enough,  he  said,  to  make  him  aware  of 
the  fact  that  those  men  who  were  willing  to  relegate 


no  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

their  wives  to  a  purely  domestic  position  were  the 
men  who  were  themselves  eventually  relegated  by 
their  party  to  a  purely  domestic  position  :  they  became 
the  domestics  of  their  party  mainly,  he  believed,  be- 
cause they  had  been  foolish  enough — conceited 
enough,  for  there  is  no  such  fool  as  your  conceited 
politician — to  fancy  that  nowadays — nay,  that  at  any 
time  in  the  history  of  the  country,  the  wife  of  the 
political  leader  should  occupy  a  humbler  place  than  the 
political  leader  himself. 

He  had  prevailed  upon  her,  first,  by  stimulating  her 
interest  in  himself,  and  secondly,  by  stimulating  her 
ambition — he  knew  that  she  had  ambition — and  she 
had  agreed,  but  only  after  considerable  difficulty  on  his 
part,  to  accept  his  assurance  that  for  some  time  at 
least,  it  would  be  well  for  their  engagement  to  remain 
a  secret,  even  from  her  father  and  mother.  He  had 
reason  for  knowing,  he  told  her,  that  her  father  was 
antagonistic  to  him,  on  account  of  his  alleged  inter- 
ference— "  interference "  was  the  word  that  Mr. 
West  had  freely  employed  at  the  time — with  the  con- 
stituency which  he  represented  at  a  rather  critical 
time.  He  knew,  he  said,  that  it  would  require  time 
to  clear  the  recollection  of  this  unhappy  incident  from 
her  father's  mind,  so  that  to  ask  him  for  his  consent 
to  their  engagement  would  be  hopeless. 

Well,  she  had,  after  great  demur,  consented  to  give 
him  her  promise,  and  to  preserve  the  matter  a  secret. 

And  now  he  was  sitting  in  his  chair  asking  himself 
the  question : 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  in 

"  Who  is  the  Other  Man  ?  " 

He  was  unable  to  answer  the  question ;  all  that  he 
could  do  was  to  keep  his  eyes  open. 

But  as  this  was  the  normal  state  of  his  eyes  he 
knew  that  he  was  not  subjecting  them  to  any  condi- 
tion that  threatened  astygia. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WHILE  Mr.  Ernest  Clifton  was  thinking  over  the 
question,  the  answer  to  which  he  believed  to  be  vital 
to  his  interests,  Amber  Severn  was  hanging  on  the 
arm  of  her  father  as  they  strolled  together  about  their 
rose-garden  under  the  cool  stars  of  the  summer  night. 
She  was  keeping  the  promise  she  had  made  to  Pierce 
Winwood  and  was  telling  him  the  story — it  struck 
her  as  being  curious — which  Pierce  Winwood  had 
told  to  her. 

It  seemed  too  that  she  had  not  overestimated  the 
element  of  the  curious  which  it  contained,  for  before 
she  had  gone  very  far  with  it  her  father  who  had 
been,  when  she  begun  the  narrative,  stooping  down 
every  now  and  again  to  smell  the  roses  as  he  moved 
from  bed  to  bed,  was  standing  still,  quite  as  engrossed 
in  hearing  the  story  from  her  as  she  had  been  in  hear- 
ing it  from  the  Australian. 

When  she  came  to  the  end,  he  put  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  and  drew  a  long  breath,  gazing,  not  at  her 
face,  but  in  an  abstracted  way,  over  her  head  into  the 
distance  of  the  shrubbery.  There  was  a  silence  of 
considerable  duration  before  he  said, — and  once  again 
he  seemed  to  draw  a  long  breath  : 

"What  did  you  say  is  the  name  of  the  man — the 
Australian — I  was  paying  so  little  attention  to  you,  I 
112 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  113 

regret  to  say,  when  you  began  your  story,  I  have 
actually  forgotten  it  ?  " 

"  Pierce  Winwood,"  replied  Amber.  "  I  men- 
tioned the  name  to  you  a  few  days  ago  when  I  told 
you  that  I  had  met  him.  You  said  you  did  not  recol- 
lect hearing  it  before,  but  I  now  see  that  you  recall 
it." 

11  You  are  wrong,  my  dear ;  I  do  not  recall  any  one 
of  that  name,"  said  her  father.  And  then  he  turned 
away  from  her,  looking  up  to  the  topmost  windows 
of  the  house,  which  were  glowing  one  by  one,  as  the 
servants  switched  on  the  lights  in  turn,  preparing  the 
rooms  for  the  night. 

Amber  was  a  little  struck  at  his  way  of  taking  the 
story.  It  appeared  to  her  that  he  must  have  heard  it 
all  before,  for  he  had  not  given  any  exclamation  of 
surprise  while  she  dwelt  on  some  of  the  details  that 
seemed  to  her  rather  marvellous.  His  attitude  on 
hearing  it  to  its  close,  was,  she  thought,  that  of  a 
person  whose  distant  memories  have  been  awakened. 

"What  did  he  say  was  the  name  of  the  man — the 
man  to  whom  the  thing  happened  ?  "  he  asked,  after 
another  and  a  longer  pause. 

"  He  was  unable  to  give  me  any  name — either  the 
name  of  the  man  who  was  falsely  imprisoned  or  the 
one  who  allowed  himself  to  be  saved  by  the  false- 
hood," replied  Amber. 

"  Ah  ...  I  wonder  if  he  is  anxious  to  find 
out  either  of  those  names." 

"  He  said   nothing   about  that.      He  only  told  me 


1 14  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

the  story  because  we  had  been  talking  about  the 
romance  of  the  colonies,"  said  Amber. 

"Ah     .     .     ." 

"  But  now  that  I  come  to  think  of  the  way  he 
dwelt  on  some  of  the  details  in  the  story  he  must  take 
a  more  than  ordinary  amount  of  interest  in  the  people 
of  that  little  drama — the  story  would  make  a  very 
good  play,  I  think." 

"That  is  just  what  I  have  been  thinking — a  very 
good  play.  You  really  fancy  that  he  took  a  personal 
interest  in  some  of  the  details  ?  " 

11  Well,  it  did  not  seem  so  to  me  at  the  moment,  I 
must  confess ;  but  as  I  said  just  now,  the  more  I 
think  of  it  the  more  I  feel  .  .  .  but  perhaps  I 
exaggerate  ...  I  can  only  tell  you  what  is  my 
impression  now." 

"  That  is  almost  certain  to  be  accurate,  my  dear. 
I  am  sure  that  you  have  been  led  to  believe  that  I 
heard  the  story  before.  Of  course  I  heard  it  before. 
What  surprised  me  was  becoming  aware  of  the  fact 
that  I  was  not  alone  in  my  acquaintance  with  the  de- 
tails of  the  story — the  man  who  was  innocent  suffer- 
ing for  the  one  who  was  guilty." 

"  The  strangest  part  seems  to  me  to  be  that  of  the 
guilty  man  being  content  to  see  the  innocent  suffer. 
Is  it  possible  that  such  a  man  could  exist  ? " 

"  There  are  few  men  in  existence  possessing  suf- 
ficient strength  of  mind  to  stand  silently  by  while 
some  one  else — their  closest  friend — is  suffering  in 
their  place." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  115 

"  Strength  of  mind  ?  Strength  of — well,  they  may 
have  strength  of  mind, — but  what  about  their  hearts  ? 
Oh,  such  men  could  have  no  hearts." 

"  When  men  set  out  in  life  with  a  determination 
that  their  ambition  shall  be  realised  they  find  that 
their  best  ally  is  that  process  of  nature  known  as 
atrophy,  my  dear :  they  get  rid  of  their  hearts  to  make 
way  for  their  ambition.  At  the  same  time  you  should 
remember  that  atrophy  is  as  much  a  process  of  nature 
as  those  other  processes  which  we  associate  with  the 
action  of  the  heart." 

"Oh,  yes;  I  acknowledge  that;  and  our  abhor- 
rence of  the  man  with  the  atrophied  heart  is  quite  as 
natural  as  the  process  known  as  atrophy." 

Sir  Creighton  laughed. 

"  And  you  will  be  able  to  tell  Mr.  Winwood  the 
names  of  the  people — the  two  men  :  the  man  with 
the  heart  and  the  man  with  the  ambition  ?  "  continued 
Amber. 

"  I  could  tell  him  both  names ;  but  I  am  not  cer- 
tain that  I  should  tell  him  so  much  as  one  of  them," 
said  her  father.  "  At  any  rate,  you  are  going  to  ask 
him  to  dinner.  By  the  way,  who  did  you  say  sat 
with  him  at  the  little  feast  to-night — you  said  he  told 
you  the  story  after  dinner  ?  " 

"  Josephine  sat  beside  him.  I  think  mother  men- 
tioned it  when  we  returned,"  said  Amber. 

"  Of  course  she  did,"  said  her  father.  "  I  had  for- 
gotten for  the  moment.  And  I  suppose  one  may  take 
it  for  granted  that  Josephine  and  he  got  on  all  right  ? " 


n6  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  I'm  sure  they  did.  I  hadn't  a  chance  of  asking 
her.  Oh,  of  course,  they  got  on  all  right ;  Joe  isn't 
the  girl  to  let  a  stranger  feel  l  heavy  and  ill  at  ease,'  as 
the  song  says." 

u  That  occurred  to  me.  And  the  man — would  he 
tell  her  the  story  too  ?  Oh,  I  don't  suppose  that 
he  would  have  the  chance  at  the  dinner  table.  He 
isn't  in  the  position  of  the  Ancient  Mariner." 

"  I  don't  suppose  he  would  have  told  me  if  we 
hadn't  begun  to  talk  about  Australian  romances.  He 
had  a  groom  who  used  to  play  polo  at  Ranelagh — and 
a  stock  rider  too.  Funny,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"Very  funny.  You  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
he  was  a  good  sort  of  chap  ?  " 

"  You  mean  Mr.  Winwood  ?  Oh,  yes,  he  is  very 
nice." 

"I  think  you  might  ask  Josephine  to  come  on 
whatever  night  you  invite  him.  Make  it  a  small 
party,  Amber." 

"  I'll  make  it  as  small  as  you  please,  if  you  want  to 
talk  to  him  afterwards.  Why  should  not  I  ask  him 
to  drop  in  to  lunch  ?  that  will  be  more  informal,  and 
besides,  we  really  haven't  a  spare  evening  for  three 
weeks  to  come." 

"A  capital  idea!  Yes,  ask  him  to  lunch.  Only 
he  may  not  have  a  spare  morning  for  as  many  weeks. 
Don't  forget  Josephine  :  meantime  we'll  go  to  our 
beds  and  have  a  sleep  or  two.  Who  sat  beside  you  at 
dinner  ?  " 

"Lord    Lullworth.      A   nice  —  no,   he   might   be 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  117 

nice  only  that  he's  pig-headed.  He  ridiculed  the 
school." 

They  had  walked  towards  the  house,  and  now  they 
were  standing  together  at  the  foot  of  the  flight  of 
steps  leading  to  the  door  by  which  they  meant  to 
enter. 

"  He  ridiculed  the  school,  did  he  ?  Well,  your 
friend  Willie  Bateman  will  tell  us  that  he  could  not 
do  more  for  the  school  than  that.  By  the  way,  did 
this  Mr.  Winwood  bind  you  down  to  secrecy  in  re- 
gard to  his  story  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary  he  asked  me  to  tell  it  to  you ; 
but  now  that  I  come  to  think  of  it  he  said  he  would 
rather  that  I  didn't  tell  it  to  Mr.  Richmond  :  you  see 
I  suggested  before  he  told  it  to  me  that  it  would  serve 
— possibly — as  an  exercise  for  one  of  the  classes." 

"  I  think  he  was  right.  I  would  advise  you  to  re- 
frain from  telling  it  to  Mr.  Richmond  or  in  fact  to 
any  one.  I  would  even  go  the  length  of  refraining 
from  telling  it  to  Josephine." 

"  What !  oh,  he  did  not  tell  me  to  keep  it  such  a 
secret  as  all  that.  Why  shouldn't  I  tell  it  to  Joe  ?  " 

"  Why  should  you  tell  it  to  her.  It  may  concern 
this  Mr.  Winwood  more  closely  than  you  think.  You 
remember  what  the  knowing  man  says  in  one  of  An- 
gier's  comedies  ? — '  When  any  one  tells  me  a  story 
of  what  happened  to  a  friend  of  his,  I  know  pretty 
well  who  that  friend  is.' ' 

"  You  mean  to  say  that  it  is — that  it  was " 

"  I  mean  to  say  nothing  more,  and  I  would  advise 


u8  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

you  to  follow  my  example.  Good-night,  my  dear. 
Don't  give  too  much  of  your  thought  to  the  question 
of  who  Mr.  Winwood's  friend  is — or  was.  He  told 
you  he  was  dead,  didn't  he  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  said  that  he  was  dead  and  that  he  didn't 
even  know  what  his  name  was." 

"Ah,  well,  I  have  the  better  of  him  there.  Good- 
night." 

He  kissed  her,  and  she  suffered  herself  to  be  kissed 
by  him,  but  was  too  far  lost  in  thought  to  be  able  to 
return  his  valediction. 

She  went  to  her  dressing-room ;  but  she  heard  her 
father  go  down  the  corridor  to  his  study  before  she  had 
reached  the  first  lobby.  She  could  not,  however,  hear 
the  way  he  paced  the  floor  of  his  study  for  some  min- 
utes before  throwing  himself  upon  his  sofa,  or  she 
might  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  story 
which  she  had  repeated  to  him  concerned  him  much 
more  closely  than  it  did. 

But  he  was  a  scientific  man  and  his  methods  of 
thought  were  scientific. 

"  A  coincidence — a  coincidence  !  "  he  muttered. 
"  Yes,  one  of  those  coincidences  that  are  carefully  ar- 
ranged for.  He  never  would  have  told  her  the  story 
but  for  the  fact  of  his  hearing  that  I  knew  all  about 
it.  It  would  have  been  a  coincidence  if  he  had  told 
her  the  story  without  knowing  who  she  was." 

He  resumed  his  pacing  of  the  room  for  some 
minutes  longer,  but  then,  with  an  impatient  word,  he 
extinguished  the  lights. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  119 

"  Psha !  "  he  said.  "  What  does  it  amount  to  after 
all  ?  Not  much,  only  I  never  thought  it  possible  that 
all  that  old  business  would  ever  be  revived.  I  fancied 
that  it  was  dead  and  buried  long  ago.  It's  a 
pity — a  great  pity.  Yes,  that's  what  I  think  now. 
But  .  .  ." 

He  remained  for  a  minute  or  two  in  the  dark,  but 
whatever  his  thoughts  were  he  did  not  utter  them. 
He  went  silently  upstairs  to  his  room. 


When  Amber  saw  Josephine  a  couple  of  days 
later  and  asked  her  to  drop  in  to  lunch  on  the  follow- 
ing Friday,  Josephine  said  she  would  be  delighted ; 
but  when  Amber  mentioned  immediately  afterwards, 
that  Pierce  Winwood  would  probably  be  the  only 
stranger  of  the  party  she  was  rather  surprised  to  no- 
tice a  little  flush  upon  Josephine's  face  followed  by  a 
little  drawing  down  of  the  corners  of  her  mouth,  and 
the  airiest  shadow  of  a  frown — perhaps  a  pout. 

"  Did  you  say  Friday  ?  "  Josephine  asked  in  a  tone 
that  suggested  a  vocal  sequence  to  the  tiny  frown  that 
might  have  been  a  pout. 

"Yes,  I  said  Friday  and  you  said  you  would  come. 
Don't  try  to  make  out  now  that  you  misunderstood 
me,"  cried  Amber. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  try.     Only " 

"  Only  what  ?  Why  should  you  dislike  meeting 
Mr.  Winwood  ?  Did  you  expect  me  to  ask  Guy 
Overton  or  Mr.  Richmond — or  was  it  Arthur  you 


120  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

had  set  your  heart  on  ?  Didn't  you  find  Mr.  Win- 
wood  entertaining  ?  " 

"  Entertaining  ?  Entertaining  ?  "  Josephine  looked 
at  her  strangely  for  a  few  moments  and  then  gave  a 
laugh.  "Entertaining?"  she  said  again.  "  I  really 
never  gave  a  thought  to  the  question  as  to  whether  he 
was  entertaining  or  the  reverse.  The  men  who 
entertain  one  are  not  always  the  people  one  wants  to 
meet  again.  I  think  that  there's  hardly  any  one  so 
dull  as  the  man  who  tries  to  be  entertaining." 

"  Then  what  have  you  against  Mr.  Winwood  ? " 
asked  Amber. 

"  Did  I  say  that  I  had  somewhat  against  him  ? " 
cried  Josephine  quickly  and  with  quite  unnecessary 
vehemence.  "  Now,  don't  say  that  I  suggested  to 
you  that  I  disliked  this  Mr.  Winwood.  I  was  only 
— only  surprised.  Why  should  you  ask  me  to  meet 
him  again  ?  There  was  no  need  for  me  ever  to  meet 
him  again.  People  come  together  at  dinner  or  at  a 
dance  and  separate  and — and — that's  all  right.  Why 
shouldn't  this  Mr.  Winwood  be  allowed  to  drift  away 
after  this  comfortable  and  accommodating  manner  ?  " 

Amber  stared  at  her.  Her  face  was  almost  flushed 
with  the  vehemence  of  her  words,  and  there  was  a 
strange  sparkle  in  her  eyes.  Amber  stared  at  this  in- 
explicable display  of  feeling.  She  wondered  what  on 
earth  had  come  over  her  friend  Josephine,  and  had 
opened  her  mouth  to  say  so,  when  Josephine  pre- 
vented her  speaking. 

"Now,  don't  say — what  you're  going  to  say,"  she 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  121 

cried,  lifting  up  both  her  hands  in  an  exaggerated  at- 
titude of  protest  which,  however,  but  imperfectly  con- 
cealed the  increased  flush  upon  her  face.  "  Don't 
say  that  I'm  an  idiot,  my  beloved  girl,  because  I  hap- 
pen to  have — to  have  taken  an  unaccountable  dislike 
to  your  Mr.  Winwood.  I  haven't — I  give  you  rny 
word  I  haven't  in  reality — as  a  matter  of  fact  I  think 
that  I  could  almost  like  him,  if  I  did  not — that  is  to 
say,  if  I  did  not — do  the  other  thing.  There  you  are 
now." 

"  What's  the  other  thing  ?  "  asked  Amber. 

"  Good  gracious !  what's  the  opposite  to  liking  a 
man  ?  " 

"  Loving  a  man,"  cried  Amber. 

Josephine's  flush  vanished.  It  was  her  turn  to 
stare.  She  stared  as  a  cold  search-light  stares. 

Then  she  said  coldly  : 

"  I  dislike  your  Mr.  Winwood — I — I — I  wonder 
if  I  don't  actually  hate  him.  Yes,  I  feel  that  I  must 
actually  hate  him  or  I  shouldn't  be  looking  forward 
to  meeting  him  so  eagerly  as  I  do.  That's  the  truth 
for  you,  my  dear  Amber — the  truth — whatever  that 
may  mean." 

"  I  wish  you  were  not  coming  on  Friday,"  said 
Amber,  after  a  long,  thoughtful  and  embarrassing 
pause. 

"  So  do  I.  But  I  swear  to  you  that  nothing  shall 
prevent  my  lunching  with  you  on  Friday,"  cried 
Josephine. 

And  then  after  a  moment  of  gravity  which  Amber 


122  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

thought  might  be  simulated  in  a  kind  of  spirit  of 
parody  of  her  own  gravity,  Josephine  burst  out  laugh- 
ing and  then  hurried  away. 

Amber  felt  completely  puzzled  by  her  attitude. 
She  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  her  flushing — of 
her  frowning — of  her  pouting — least  of  all  of  her 
outburst  of  laughter. 

She  thought  over  what  Josephine  had  said ;  but,  of 
course,  that  was  no  assistance  to  her. 

If  one  cannot  arrive  at  any  satisfactory  interpreta- 
tion of  a  girl's  flushing  and  frowning  and  laughing 
one  is  not  helped  forward  to  any  appreciable  extent 
by  recalling  her  words. 

Amber  wished  with  all  her  heart  that  her  father  had 
not  suggested  to  her  the  asking  of  Josephine  to  this 
confidential  little  lunch  which  he  had  projected. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

IF  Josephine  came  with  great  reluctance  to  lunch 
with  her  dearest  friend  because  of  her  precipitate  dis- 
like to  Mr.  Winwood,  she  was  of  course  sufficiently 
a  woman  of  the  world  to  avoid  betraying  in  any  way 
that  might  cause  her  friend  to  feel  uncomfortable,  her 
antipathy  to  him — perhaps  antipathy  was  too  strong 
a  word  to  think,  Amber  thought ;  but  she  felt  that  if 
she  did  Josephine  an  injustice  in  letting  so  strong  a 
word  come  into  her  mind  in  this  connection,  the 
mystic  manner — the  absurd  and  inexplicable  con- 
tradictoriness  of  Josephine  was  alone  accountable 
for  it. 

Amber  felt  a  little  nervous  in  observing  the  attitude 
of  Mr.  Winwood  in  respect  of  Josephine.  If  he 
were  to  give  any  sign  of  returning  Josephine's — well, 
not  antipathy — uncongeniality  would  be  a  better  word, 
Amber  felt  that  she  should  have  just  cause  for  annoy- 
ance. 

The  result  of  her  observation  of  him  was  to  relieve 
her  mind  of  its  burden  of  doubt.  He  looked  more 
than  pleased  when  he  found  himself  face  to  face  with 
Miss  West. 

And  then  it  was  that  Amber  first  came  to  perceive 
that  Pierce  Winwood  was  a  very  good-looking  man. 
He  had  a  frank  way  of  standing  in  front  of  one  that 
123 


i24  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

somehow  suggested  a  schoolboy  thirsting  for  informa- 
tion from  his  betters. 

"  I  thought  that  London  was  a  place  where  one 
never  found  out  the  name  of  one's  next  door  neigh- 
bour and  never  met  the  same  person  twice,  but  I  am 
glad  to  discover  my  mistake,"  said  he  when  Josephine 
had  shaken  hands  with  him. 

And  then  Amber  breathed  freely. 

And  Josephine  treated  him  with  positive  cordiality 
— u  How  amazingly  well  a  woman  can  conceal  her  real 
feelings"  was  Amber's  thought  when  she  noticed  how 
pleasantly  her  friend  smiled  looking  straight  into  Mr. 
Win  wood's  face  while  she  said  : 

"  I  think  our  life  here  quite  delightful :  we  need 
only  meet  a  second  time  the  people  whom  we 
like.  In  the  country  one  is  compelled  to  take  the 
goats  with  the  sheep :  one  has  no  choice  in  the 
matter." 

"  A  second  time  ? "  said  he.  "  What  about  a 
third  time  ?  Is  a  third  time  possible  ?  " 

"  Almost  inevitable — if  one  passes  the  second  time," 
said  Josephine. 

"You  are  building  up  my  hopes,"  he  said,  turning 
away  from  her. 

She  was  petting  the  Persian  cat,  Shagpat  by  name. 

And  at  this  moment  Sir  Creighton  entered  the 
room  and  his  daughter  noticed  the  quick  scrutiny 
that  he  gave  to  the  face  of  the  younger  man.  She 
also  noticed  the  return  of  that  nervous  awkwardness 
which  the  younger  man  had  displayed  on  meeting  her 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  125 

on  the  Sunday  afternoon.  It  never  occurred  to  her 
that  the  man  who  called  himself  Pierce  Winwood 
and  who  said  that  his  father  had  once  known  hers 
might  be  an  impostor. 

Sir  Creighton  shook  hands  with  him  and  said  he 
was  glad  that  he  was  able  to  come. 

"There  are  so  many  things  going  on  just  now,  are 
there  not  ? "  he  said.  "  And  I  suppose  you  are  anx- 
ious to  attend  everything,  Mr.  Winwood." 

"  One  must  lunch  somewhere,"  said  Amber. 

"  Lunch  is  a  sort  of  postscript  to  one's  breakfast  in 
London  town,"  said  Sir  Creighton.  "  I  don't  sup- 
pose that  any  one  except  we  working  men  can  get 
over  breakfast  before  eleven.  What  time  does  your 
father  breakfast  on  the  morning  after  a  late  sitting  of 
the  House,  Josephine  ?  " 

"  He  is  invariably  the  first  one  of  the  household  to 
be  in  the  breakfast  room,"  said  Josephine. 

"  I  find  people  in  London  the  earliest  to  bed  and 
the  earliest  to  rise  of  any  I  have  ever  known,"  re- 
marked Winwood.  "  I  was  led  into  Bohemia  the 
other  evening.  I  found  it  the  most  orderly  and 
certainly  the  earliest  of  communities.  The  greater 
number  of  the  revellers  drank  nothing  but  Apollinaris 
and  hurried  off  to  catch  suburban  trains." 

"  I  heard  some  one  say  the  other  day  that  the 
Underground  Railway  has  done  more  to  advance  the 
cause  of  temperance  than  all  the  lecturers  in  the 
world,"  said  Lady  Severn. 

11 1   am   afraid   that   even  the  once  potent  magic- 


126  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

lantern  must  take  a  second  place  as  a  reforming 
agent,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 

"  I  believe  that  there  is  still  one  real  Bohemian  alive 
in  London  to-day,"  said  Josephine.  "  He  is  one  of  the 
aborigines  and  he  is  as  carefully  looked  after  as  if  he 
were  a  Maori  or  a  Pitcairn  Islander." 

"  He  was  pointed  out  to  me,"  said  Winwood. 
"  He  is,  I  hear,  the  sole  survivor  of  a  once  dilapi- 
dated community.  He  forms  an  excellent  example 
to  those  who  may  fancy  that  there  was  anything 
fascinating  in  mediocrity  combined  with  potations." 

And  all  this  time  Amber  perceived  that  her  father 
was  scrutinising  the  face  of  Pierce  Winwood,  but 
giving  no  indication  that  he  recalled  in  the  face  of  the 
son  any  of  the  features  of  the  father,  whom  her 
father  was  supposed  to  know. 

The  conversation  which  was  being  eked  out  until 
the  meal  should  be  announced  became  too  attenu- 
ated even  to  serve  this  purpose,  but  just  at  the  right 
moment  the  relief  came ;  and  of  course  when  the 
little  party  had  settled  down  at  the  table  topics  were 
not  wanting,  and  also  as  a  matter  of  course  every 
topic  had  to  be  general :  there  was  no  possibility  of 
Sir  Creighton  and  Winwood  discussing  between  them- 
selves any  matter  that  they  might  have  to  discuss. 
Amber,  who  gave  herself  up  to  observing  everything, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  on  the  whole  her  father 
was  favourably  impressed  by  the  personality  of  the 
Australian ;  but  somehow  the  latter  did  not  succeed 
in  inducing  Josephine  to  talk  as  she  usually  could 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  127 

talk.  She  was  not  so  silent  as  to  call  for  remark; 
but  there  was  at  the  table  none  of  that  "  forced 
draught "  conversation  which  Sir  Creighton  usually 
found  so  stimulating. 

When  the  two  men  were  left  together,  and  had 
lighted  cigars,  the  younger  did  not  wait  for  his  host 
to  lead  up  to  the  question  of  his  identity. 

"  I  have  been  wondering,  with  some  anxiety,  Sir 
Creighton,  if  I  have  yet  suggested  any  person  to  your 
memory." 

"  I  am  a  scientific  man,  and  therefore  not  quite  so 
liable  as  most  people  to  accept  fancies  on  the  same 
basis  as  real  evidence,"  said  Sir  Creighton.  "  It 
would  be  impossible  for  me  to  say  that  your  features 
suggested  to  me  those  of  any  man  with  whom  I  was 
acquainted  years  ago — how  many  years  ago  ?  " 

Winwood  shook  his  head. 

u  I  cannot  say  how  many  years  ago  it  was  that  you 
were  acquainted  with  my  father,"  he  said.  "  I 
thought  that  perhaps — no  one  has  ever  suggested  a 
likeness  between  my  father  and  myself,  still  I  thought 
— well,  one  often  sees  transmitted  some  personal  trait 
— some  mannerism  that  recalls  an  individuality. 
That  is  a  scientific  truth,  is  it  not,  Sir  Creighton  ?  " 

"  It  is  highly  scientific,"  said  Sir  Creighton  with  a 
laugh.  "  Yes,  on  that  basis,  I  admit  that — once  or 
twice,  perhaps — a  recollection  seemed  to  be  awak- 
ened ;  but — what  is  in  my  mind  at  this  moment,  is  the 
imitation  of  well-known  actors  to  which  one  is  treated 
in  unguarded  moments  by  popular  entertainers.  I 


128  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

dare  say  that  you  have  noticed  also  that  it  is  only 
when  the  entertainer  has  announced  the  name  of  the 
well-known  actor  whom  he  imitates  that  the  imitation 
becomes  plausible.  Now,  although  I  occasionally 
boast  of  being  influenced  only  by  scientific  methods, 
still  I  fancy  that  if  I  knew  the  name  of  your  father  I 
should  have  less  difficulty  recalling  the  man  whose 
personalities — that  is  some  of  them— a  few — are 
echoed  by  you.  I  knew  no  one  bearing  the  name 
Win  wood." 

"You  ask  me  the  question  which  I  was  in  hopes 
you  could  answer,  Sir  Creighton,"  said  Winwood. 
"I  had  no  idea  that  the  name  by  which  my  father 
was  known  during  the  forty  years  or  so  that  he  lived 
in  the  colony  was  an  assumed  one.  I  never  found 
out  what  was  his  real  one.  To  say  the  truth,  it  is 
only  recently  that  my  curiosity  on  this  point  has  been 
aroused.  In  a  young  colony  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
uncertainty  with  regard  to  names." 

"  I  dare  say.  You  told  my  daughter  a  curious  and 
an  almost  incredible  story,  however,  and  she  repeated 
it  to  me,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 

"  You  will  not  tell  me  that  you  never  heard  that 
story  before,"  cried  the  younger  man,  half  rising  from 
his  seat.  "  If  you  tell  me  so,  I  shall  feel  uncom- 
monly like  an  impostor." 

"  Oh,  no ;  I  heard  all  the  details  of  that  story  long 
ago,"  replied  Sir  Creighton.  "  Only,  as  it  was  told 
to  me  I  fail  to  see  what  bearing  it  has  upon  your 
identity." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  129 

"  The  man  who  suffered  in  the  place  of  his  friend 
was  my  father,  Sir  Creighton,"  said  Winwood. 
"  Now  you  know  the  name  of  the  original  actor  of 
whose  personality  I  have  been  giving  you  imitations 
— faint  imitations,  I  dare  say." 

"  Yes,  now  I  know  ;  and  I  admit  that  I  see  the  ori- 
ginal much  more  clearly,"  said  Sir  Creighton  laughing. 
But  his  listener  was  not  laughing.  He  was  leaning  his 
head  on  his  hand,  his  elbow  being  on  the  table,  and 
seemed  to  be  lost  in  thought.  There  was  no  elation 
in  his  expression  at  Sir  Creighton's  admission. 

Sir  Creighton  became  equally  grave  in  a  moment. 

"  It  was  the  cruellest  thing  and  the  most  heroic 
thing  ever  done  in  the  world,"  said  he  in  a  low  voice. 
u  It  was  to  me  your  father  told  the  truth  about  that 
confession  of  his,  and  he  did  so  only  on  my  promis- 
ing in  the  most  solemn  way  that  I  would  keep  the 
matter  a  secret.  I  often  wonder  if  I  was  justified  in 
adhering  to  my  promise." 

"  When  he  told  me  the  story  he  rather  prided  him- 
self on  his  judgment  in  selecting  you  as  his  confi- 
dant," said  Winwood.  "  Yes  ;  he  said  that  he  knew 
he  could  trust  you  to  keep  his  secret." 

"  I  don't  think  that  I  would  have  kept  it  if  he  had 
entrusted  it  to  me  before  he  had  suffered  his  imprison- 
ment," said  Sir  Creighton.  "  He  did  not  do  so, 
however,  until  his  release  and  when  he  was  on  the 
point  of  sailing  for  South  America — it  was  for  South 
America  he  sailed,  not  Australia." 

"  He  remained  for  nearly  five  years  in  Rio  Janeiro," 


130  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

said  Winwood.  "  The  training  which  we  received 
at  the  engineering  works  he  was  able  to  turn  to  good 
account  at  Rio,  and  so  far  as  I  could  gather  he  made 
enough  money  to  give  him  a  start  in  Australia.  He 
succeeded  and  I  think  he  was  happy.  It  was  not  un- 
til he  had  reached  his  last  year  that  he  told  me  the 
story." 

"  He  did  so  without  any  bitterness  in  regard  to  the 
other  man,  I  am  sure,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 

"Without  a  single  word  of  reproach,"  said  Win- 
wood.  "  He  really  felt  glad  that  the  other  man  had 
prospered — he  told  me  that  he  had  prospered  and  that 
he  had  reached  a  high  position  in  the  world." 

"  You  see  your  father  rightly  thought  of  himself  as 
having  saved  the  man  from  destruction  ;  not  merely 
from  the  disgrace  which  would  have  been  the  direct 
result  of  his  forgery  being  discovered,  but  from  the 
contemptible  life  which  he  was  leading.  I  don't 
know  if  your  father  told  you  that  one  of  the  conditions 
of  the  strange  compact  between  them  was  that  he 
would  change  his  life  ;  and  for  once  the  man  fulfilled 
that  part  of  his  compact.  Your  father  saved  him." 

Winwood  nodded  in  assent,  while  he  still  allowed 
his  head  to  rest  on  his  hand,  as  if  he  were  lost  in 
thought. 

Suddenly  he  turned  his  eyes  upon  Sir  Creighton, 
then  drew  his  chair  closer  to  him,  and  leaning  for- 
ward, said : 

"  Sir  Creighton,  will  you  tell  me  what  is  the  name 
of  that  man  ?  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  131 

Sir  Creighton  was  awaiting  this  question.  He  had 
been  considering  for  the  previous  two  days  what 
answer  he  should  return  to  this  question,  and  yet  he 
felt  taken  somewhat  unawares  for  he  did  not  expect 
that  his  conversation  with  Winwood  would  lead  to  a 
view  of  his  father's  act  from  the  standpoint  from 
which  it  now  seemed  that  he  regarded  it. 

"  It  appears  to  me  that  your  father  had  his  own 
reasons — very  excellent  reasons  too — for  refraining 
from  telling  you  either  his  own  name  or  the  name  of 
the  man  whom  he  saved  from  destruction,"  he  said. 
"  I  wonder  if  I  have  any  right  to  make  you  ac- 
quainted with  what  he  withheld.  What  is  your  opin- 
ion on  this  matter  ?  " 

"  I  asked  you  to  tell  me  the  man's  name,  Sir 
Creighton,"  replied  Winwood. 

"  I  have  no  doubt  that  you  are  intensely  interested 
in  the  search  for  his  name,"  said  Sir  Creighton.  "  But 
do  you  really  think  that  I  should  be  justified  in  tell- 
ing you  what  your  father  clearly  meant  to  remain  a 
secret  ?  Just  at  present  I  feel  very  strongly  that  I 
have  no  right  to  do  this.  If  any  one  would  be  hap- 
pier for  my  telling  you  the  man's  name  I  dare  say  that 
I  might,  at  least,  be  tempted  to  do  so ;  but  no  one 
would  be  the  happier  for  it.  On  the  contrary,  you 
yourself  would,  I  know,  be  sorry  that  I  told  you  the 
name  of  the  man,  and  as  for  the  man— as  I  am  ac- 
quainted with  him  to-day  and  have  some  respect  for 
him " 

"  Some  respect  ?  " 


1,32  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  Some  respect — in  fact,  in  spite  of  my  knowing 
all  that  I  do,  a  good  deal  of  respect — as,  I  repeat,  I 
have  no  desire  to  make  him  unhappy,  I  shall  not  tell 
you  what  is  his  name — I  shall  not  tell  him  that  the 
son  of  the  man  whom  he  allowed  to  suffer  for  his 
crime,  is  alive  and  anxious  to  know  all  about  him." 

"You  mean  that  you  will  not  tell  me — just  yet." 

"That  is  exactly  what  is  in  my  mind  at  this  mo- 
ment. I  should  have  added  those  words  of  yours 
1  just  yet,'  to  what  I  said  regarding  both  you — and 
the  man.  I  may  think  it  due  to  you  to  tell  you 
some  day ;  and  I  may  also  think  it  due  to — the  man 
to  tell  him.  Meantime — not  just  yet — I  hope  you 
are  not  unsatisfied,  my  boy  ?  " 

Sir  Creighton  put  out  his  hand  with  more  than 
cordiality — absolute  tenderness,  and  the  younger  man 
took  it,  and  was  deeply  affected. 

"  I  am  satisfied — more  than  satisfied,"  he  said  in  a 
low  voice.  "  I  shall  try  to  be  worthy  of  such  a  father 
as  I  had." 

"  You  are  worthy,  my  boy — I  know  it  now,"  said 
Sir  Creighton.  "You  do  not  shrink  from  self-sacri- 
fice. I  hoped  to  find  that  my  old  friend  had  such  a 
son  as  you.  I  may  be  able  to  do  something  for  you 
— to  help  you  in  a  way  that— that — oh,  we  need  not 
lay  plans  for  the  future ;  it  is  only  such  plans  that  are 
never  realised.  Now  I  think  we  can  face  the  draw- 
ing-room." 


CHAPTER  XV 

JOSEPHINE  was  saying  good-bye  to  Lady  Severn 
and  Amber  was  doing  her  best  to  induce  her  to  stay. 
As  the  two  men  paused  outside  the  drawing-room 
door  there  was  a  frou-frou  of  laughter  within  the  room 
— the  rustle  of  the  drapery  of  a  flying  jest  at  Amber's 
insistence. 

"  You  will  not  go,  please,"  said  Pierce  when  Amber 
appealed  to  him  to  stand  between  the  door  and  Jo- 
sephine. "You  cannot  go  just  at  the  moment  of  my 
return,  especially  as  Miss  Severn  has  promised  to 
show  me  the  roses." 

"  The  argument  is  irresistible,"  said  Josephine  with 
a  little  shrug  following  a  moment  of  irresolution. 
"  But  that  was  not  Amber's  argument,  I  assure  you." 

"  I  merely  said  that  I  expected  some  of  my  friends 
to  come  to  me  to  report  their  progress,"  said  Amber. 

"  That  seems  to  me  to  be  an  irresistible  reason  for 
a  hurried  departure,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 

"  Oh,  I  wouldn't  suggest  that  they  were  so  inter- 
esting as  that,"  said  Josephine,  with  a  laugh,  a  laugh 
that  made  one — some  one — think  of  the  laughter  of  a 
brook  among  mossy  stones. 

"  Interesting  enough  to  run  away  from  ? "  said 
Pierce.  "  Well,  any  one  who  is  interesting  enough 
for  Miss  West  to  run  away  from  is  certainly  interest- 
ing enough  for  an  ordinary  person  to  stay  for — but 


i34  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

for  that  matter,  I  did  not  suggest  that  I  was  going 
away." 

"  You  saved  us  the  trouble  of  insisting  on  your 
staying — for  some  time,  at  any  rate,"  said  Lady 
Severn. 

"  As  long  as  you  can  after  the  arrival  of  the  ob- 
jects of  interest,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 

"  And  now  I  think  we  may  go  among  the  roses 
without  reproach,"  said  Josephine. 

She  led  the  way  out  to  the  terrace  and  then  down 
the  steps  into  the  garden,  and  was  followed  by  Amber 
and  Pierce,  and  for  half  an  hour  they  strolled  about 
the  rose  beds,  Amber  being  every  minute  more  amazed 
at  the  self-repression  of  Josephine  in  regard  to  Mr. 
Winwood.  Although  she  had  frankly  acknowledged 
that  she  had  formed  a  dislike  to  Mr.  Winwood,  she 
had  not  only  come  to  lunch  when  she  knew  that  he 
would  be  the  only  other  guest,  but  she  had  allowed 
herself  to  be  easily  persuaded  to  stay  on  after  the  hour 
when  without  being  thought  impolite,  she  might  have 
gone  away. 

And  she  was  not  even  content  with  these  tokens 
of  self-abnegation,  for  here  she  was  after  the  lapse  of 
half  an  hour,  still  conversing  with  Mr.  Winwood 
when  really  she  had  no  need  to  remain  for  longer 
than  ten  minutes  in  the  garden  ! 

And  she  was  actually  pretending  to  take  an  interest 
in  all  that  he  was  saying,  an  interest  so  absorbing  as 
to  give  Amber  herself  an  impression  of  being  neg- 
lected. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  135 

She  had  always  felt  that  Josephine  was  indeed  a 
true  friend,  but  she  had  never  before  had  offered  to 
her  so  impressive  a  series  of  tokens  of  her  friendship. 
The  friendship  that  dissembles  a  rooted  dislike  for  a 
fellow-visitor  is  of  sterling  quality  Amber  felt ;  and 
with  this  feeling  there  was  joined  one  of  admiration 
for  the  way  in  which  her  friend  played  her  part. 

Poor  Mr.  Winwood  !  He  might  really  have  be- 
lieved from  her  manner  that  he  had  favourably  im- 
pressed Josephine.  Once  or  twice  Amber  fancied 
that  she  saw  on  his  face  a  certain  look  that  suggested 
that  he  was  gratified  at  his  success  in  holding  the  at- 
tention of  the  fair  dissembler  by  his  side. 

Poor  Mr.  Winwood  ! 

Perhaps  Josephine  was  carrying  the  thing  too 
far — perhaps  she  was  over-emphasising  her  attitude 
of  polite  attention.  It  would,  the  kind-hearted  young 
woman  felt,  be  a  very  melancholy  thing  if  so  good  a 
sort  of  man  as  this  Mr.  Winwood  were  led  to  fancy 
that — that — oh,  well,  no  doubt  in  the  colonies  young 
men  were  more  simple-minded  than  those  at  home — 
more  susceptible  to  the  charming  manners  of  a  beau- 
tiful girl,  being  less  aware  of  the  frequency  with 
which  charming  manners  are  used — innocently  per- 
haps—  to  cloak  a  girl's  real  feelings.  It  would,  she 
felt,  be  truly  sad  if  this  man  were  to  go  away  under 
the  belief  that  he  was  creating  a  lasting  impression 
upon  Josephine  ;  whereas,  all  the  time,  it  was  only  her 
exquisite  sense  of  what  was  due  to  her  host  and  hostess 
— it  was  only  her  delicate  appreciation  of  what  her 


136  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

friendship  for  Amber  herself  demanded  of  her,  that  led 
her  to  simulate  a  certain  pleasure  from  associating 
with  Mr.  Winwood. 

The  kind  thoughtfulness  of  Miss  Severn  not  merely 
for  the  present  but  for  the  future  comfort  of  at  least 
one  of  her  guests  was  causing  her  some  slight  un- 
easiness. She  became  aware  of  the  fact  that  her  mother 
was  making  a  sign  to  her  from  one  of  the  windows 
of  the  drawing-room  that  opened  upon  the  terrace 
walk. 

"  Some  of  my  visitors  must  have  arrived  already," 
she  cried.  "  Oh,  yes,  it  is  Guy.  You  must  not  run 
away.  He  would  feel  that  you  were  rude." 

"  And  he  would  be  right :  he  has  his  sensitive  in- 
tervals," said  Winwood.  "We  should  not  hurt  his 
feelings." 

"You  will  not  run  away  at  once?"  said  Amber 
tripping  towards  the  house.  "  Oh,  thank  you." 

They  showed  no  sign  of  having  any  great  desire  to 
run  away. 

"  I  never  felt  less  inclined  to  run  away  than  I  do 
just  now,"  said  Winwood,  looking  at  the  girl  who 
remained  by  his  side. 

"  You  are  so  fond  of  roses — you  said  so." 

She  was  holding  up  to  her  face  a  handful  of  crim- 
son petals  that  she  had  picked  off  one  of  the  beds. 

"  Yes,  I  am  fond  of — of  roses,"  he  said.  "  Somehow 
England  and  all  things  that  I  like  in  England  are  as- 
sociated in  my  mind  with  roses." 

"  It  is  the  association  of  the  East  with  the  West," 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  137 

said  she.  "  The  rose  that  breathes  its  scent  through 
every  eastern  love  song  is  still  an  English  emblem; 
just  as  that  typical  Oriental  animal,  the  cat,  suggests 
no  more  of  its  native  jungle  than  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Rectory  Garden." 

"  And  the  turtle  of  the  tropics  does  not  send  one's 
thoughts  straying  to  Enoch  Arden's  island  and  the 
coral  lagoon  but  only  to  the  Mansion  House  and  a 
city  dinner." 

She  laughed. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  mentioned  the  cat,"  she  said. 

"  The  first  English  rose  I  ever  saw  was  when  we 
were  in  camp  with  Methuen  at  the  Modder  River," 
he  said. 

He  had  taken  her  by  surprise. 

"  You  went  through  the  campaign  ?  "  she  cried  and 
he  saw  a  new  interest  shining  in  her  eyes.  "  I  did 
not  hear  that  you  had  been  a  soldier.  You  did  not 
mention  it  when  you  sat  beside  me  at  Ranelagh. 
You  were  one  of  the  Australians  ?  " 

"  We  were  talking  of  roses,"  said  he.  "  It  was 
out  there  I  saw  an  English  rose  at  Christmas.  It  had 
been  sent  out  to  a  trooper  who  had  been  at  Chelsea 
Barracks,  by  his  sweetheart.  Her  brother  was  a 
gardener  and  the  rose  had  evidently  been  grown  under 
glass  to  send  out  to  him." 

"  There  is  one  English  love-story  with  the  scent 
of  the  rose  breathing  through  it,"  she  cried.  "  4  My 
luv  is  like  a  redde  redde  rose '  is  an  English  song — 
the  rose  you  speak  of  was  red,  of  course." 


138  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  after  a  little  pause ;  "  it  was  red 
— red  when  I  found  it — under  his  tunic." 

She  caught  her  breath  with  the  sound  of  a  little  sob 
in  her  throat. 

"  The  pity  of  it !  the  pity  of  it !  she  had  sent  it 
out  for  his  grave." 

She  put  her  face  once  again  down  to  the  crimson 
petals  which  remained  in  her  hands;  and  when  she 
let  them  drop  to  the  grass  he  saw  that  two  of  them 
were  clinging  together. 

"  That  was  the  first  time  I  saw  an  English  rose," 
he  said,  "  and  I  have  never  seen  one  since  without 
thinking  of  what  it  symbolised.  The  love  that  is 
stronger  than  death." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  yes." 

And,  curiously  enough,  it  seemed  that  that  word 
was  the  most  complete  commentary  upon  the  little  story 
that  he  had  told  to  her  in  so  few  sentences.  It  also 
seemed  to  suggest  something  of  the  nature  of  a  com- 
ment upon  his  last  remark — a  confidential  comment. 

He  nodded,  repeating  the  word,  but  with  a  longer 
interval  between  the  repetition  of  it : 

«  Yes— yes." 

For  a  few  moments  they  stood  together  in  silence. 
The  sound  of  voices — a  faint  murmur — came  from 
the  open  window  of  the  drawing-room.  The  note 
of  a  blackbird  from  Kensington  Gardens  thrilled 
through  the  air. 

As  if  under  the  influence  of  the  one  impulse, 
Josephine  and  her  companion  walked  once  more  down 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  139 

the  garden — slowly — musingly — silently.  It  was  not 
until  they  had  made  a  complete  circuit  of  the  rose 
beds  and  had  returned  to  the  parterre  where  they  had 
been  standing,  that  he  said : 

"  Yes — yes  :  I  know  that  I  shall  never  see  a  rose 
again  without  thinking  that — that — I  have  been 
among  the  roses  with  you." 

He  noticed  that  she  gave  a  little  start — was  it  a 
shudder  ? — and  then  glanced  quickly  towards  him. 
She  made  a  motion  with  one  of  her  hands — she  drew 
a  sudden  breath  and  said  quickly  in  a  low  tone : 

"  Mr.  Winwood — I  think — that  is — oh,  let  us  go 
into  the  house.  I  never  wish  to  walk  in  a  garden  of 
roses  again." 

He  knew  that  whatever  she  had  meant  to  say  when 
she  drew  that  long  breath,  she  had  not  said  it :  she 
had  broken  down  and  uttered  something  quite  differ- 
ent from  what  had  been  on  her  mind — on  her  lips. 

Already  she  was  half  way  to  the  terrace  steps, 
and  she  had  run  up  them  and  was  within  the  room 
before  he  moved. 

She  was  greeting  some  one  in  the  room.  How  loud 
her  laugh  was  ! 

And  yet  he  had  thought  half  an  hour  before  that  he 
had  never  heard  so  low  a  laugh  as  hers  ! — the  laughter 
of  a  brook  among  mossy  stones. 

But  a  spate  had  taken  place. 

He  went  down  once  more  to  the  end  of  the  garden 
alone  thinking  his  thoughts. 

And  when,  five  minutes  later,  he  went  slowly  up 


140  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

the  terrace  steps  he  found  that  Josephine  had  gone 
away. 

"  She  said  good-bye  to  you  before  she  left  the 
garden,  did  she  not  ?  "  cried  Amber,  while  he  glanced 
round  the  room. 

"  Oh,  yes,  she  said  good-bye,"  he  replied. 

And  then  he  cried  out,  seeing  Guy  Overton  on  a 
stool : 

"  Hullo,  you  here  ?  Why,  I  thought  that  this  was 
one  of  your  school  days." 

Amber  had  never  before  heard  him  speak  in  so 
boisterous  a  tone.  He  usually  spoke  in  a  low  voice. 

And  she  had  also  noticed  that  Josephine  had 
laughed  much  louder  than  was  her  wont. 

But  she  was  sure  that  Josephine  had  not  been  rude 
to  him.  Josephine  was  not  one  of  those  horrid  girls 
who  cannot  be  clever  without  being  rude. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

"  GUY  has  been  telling  me  all  about  his  great  in- 
vestment," cried  Amber.  "  You  never  mentioned  it 
to  us,  Mr.  Winwood.  But  perhaps  you  didn't  hear 
of  it  ?  " 

"  You  were  the  first  one  to  whom  I  told  it,"  said 
Guy  looking  at  her  sentimentally.  His  tone  was 
syrupy  with  sentimentality. 

Pierce  laughed  quite  boisterously. 

"  What  has  he  been  doing  ?  "  he  said.  "  I  cer- 
tainly heard  nothing  of  it.  It  hasn't  yet  been  put 
into  the  hands  of  that  Mr.  Bateman,  the  advertiser 
whom  I  have  been  eluding  for  the  past  fortnight. 
Have  you  bought  the  Duke's  racers  or  what  ?  " 

"  Not  much,"  said  Guy.  "  I've  got  something 
more  solid  for  my  money." 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  said  Pierce.  "  I  saw 
one  of  the  Duke's  racers  and  in  the  matter  of  solidity 
— but  what  have  you  bought  ?  " 

"  The  Gables — I've  just  bought  The  Gables.  You 
must  come  down  and  see  me,  Pierce,  old  chap — you 
really  must." 

He  had  the  air  of  the  old-fashioned  proprietor — the 
owner  of  broad  acres  and  so  forth. 

"  I  can  see  you  quite  well  enough  from  where  I 
stand — that  is,  when  you  keep  still.  Don't  wriggle 
141 


142  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

about,  sonny,  but  tell  me  what  are  The  Gables  ? 
Whose  gables  have  you  been  buying  ?  " 

"What  are  The  Gables  ?  What  are — oh,  he  has 
just  come  from  Australia.  He  has  never  heard  of  the 
historic  mansion — see  the  agent's  catalogue — The 
historic  mansion  known  as  The  Gables.  Why,  don't 
you  know  enough  of  the  history  of  your  native  land 
to  be  aware  of  the  fact  that  it  was  at  The  Gables  that 
King  Charles  the  First — or  was  it  Henry  the  First  ? 
— signed  something  or  other." 

"  Magna  Charta  ?  "  suggested  Pierce  blandly. 

"No,  not  Magna  Charta,"  said  Guy  with  the 
natural  irritation  of  a  great  scholar  who,  on  forgetting 
for  a  moment  an  important  name  or  date,  hears  the 
haphazard  prompting  of  a  tyro.  "  Not  Magna 
Charta — that  was  somewhere  else.  Never  mind, 
Nell  Gwyn  once  lived  at  The  Gables,"  he  added 
proudly.  "  You've  heard  of  Nell  Gwyn,  I  sup- 
pose ?  " 

"  Not  in  connection  with  the  history  of  my  na- 
tive land,  Mr.  Overton.  You  will  search  in  vain  the 
history  of  Australia  from  the  earliest  date  to  find  any 
allusion  there  to  a  visit  from  Nell  Gwyn,"  said  Pierce. 
"  But  I've  had  fifteen  houses  pointed  out  to  me 
within  the  four-mile  radius,  in  each  of  which  Nell 
Gwyn  lived.  And  yet  the  greatest  authority  on  the 
subject  says  she  never  lived  in  any  but  two." 

"  Well,  The  Gables  was  one  of  them,"  said  Guy. 
"  I  should  know  it  for  the  place  is  mine.  I've  just 
bought  it." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  143 

"  The  dearest  old  house  by  the  river  that  was  ever 
seen,"  said  Amber.  "You  must  have  seen  it,  Mr. 
Winwood.  On  the  way  to  Hurley — you  told  us  you 
went  to  Hurley.  The  river  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
lawn." 

"Yes,  in  summer;  but  in  the  winter  the  lawn  is 
at  the  bottom  of  the  river — why  it  was  Guy  himself 
who  told  me  that  some  friend  of  his  had -said  that," 
laughed  Pierce.  "Anyhow  you've  bought  the  place. 
Bravo,  Guy  !  You  got  it  cheap  ?  " 

"  Not  so  cheap  as  I  meant  to  when  I  set  out  to  do 
it,"  said  Guy.  "  But  another  chap  was  in  the  run- 
ning for  it  too — a  brewer  chap  !  Disgusting,  isn't  it, 
that  all  these  fine  old  places  are  getting  into  the  hands 
of  that  sort  of  man  ?  " 

"  It  is  revolting  to  the  old  stock  like  you  and  me, 
Guy,"  responded  Pierce  with  great  solemnity. 

"  I  got  the  historic  mansion,  the  grounds  with  the 
wreck  of  three  boats  and  two  boathouses — the  stables 
and  a  piggery — a  decent  sized  piggery — accommodate 
a  family  of  seventeen.  I  don't  suppose  that  I'll  ever 
want  more  than  seventeen  pigs  at  one  time.  The 
piggery  is  the  only  part  of  the  place  that  has  been  oc- 
cupied for  the  past  two  years.  I  got  the  furniture  at 
a  valuation  too." 

"  And  the  pigs  ?  "  suggested  Pierce. 

"  Oh,  I  won't  need  the  pigs.  I'm  going  to  ask  a 
crowd  of  you  chaps  down  some  Saturday,"  said  Guy, 
and  he  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  understand  why 
Lady  Severn  as  well  as  Amber  and  Winwood  burst 


i44  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

out  laughing.  He  thought  it  as  well  to  allow  himself 
to  be  persuaded  that  he  had  said  something  witty,  so 
he  too  began  to  laugh ;  but  he  laughed  so  entirely 
without  conviction  that  every  one  else  in  the  room 
roared. 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  have  a  crowd  down  to  keep  me 
company  ?  "  he  enquired  blandly.  "  What's  the  good 
of  having  a  country  house  unless  to  entertain  one's 
friends.  I'm  going  down  as  soon  as  I  can.  I'm 
not  such  a  fool  as  to  keep  up  two  establishments.  I 
have  been  paying  two  pounds  a  week  for  my  rooms 
in  town  up  to  the  present.  That's  a  lot  of  money, 
you  know." 

"  You'll  be  able  to  save  something  now,"  said 
Pierce. 

"  Not  so  much  in  the  beginning.  The  house  is 
not  more  than  a  couple  of  miles  from  your  place, 
Lady  Severn,"  said  Guy,  and  at  this  further  sugges- 
tion of  cause  and  effect  there  was  another  laugh. 

He  felt  that  he  had  joined  a  merry  party. 

"  I  don't  believe  that  it  can  be  more  than  four 
miles  from  The  Weir,"  said  Amber,  "  so  that  we 
shall  be  constantly  meeting." 

"Yes — yes — I  foresaw  that,"  acquiesced  Guy. 
"  And  I  hope  the  first  Sunday  that  you  are  at  The 
Weir,  you  will  come  up  to  my  place  and  give  me  a 
few  hints  about  the  furniture  and  things.  Shouldn't 
I  have  a  cow  ?  I've  been  thinking  a  lot  about  a  cow. 
And  yet  I  don't  know.  If  I  get  a  cow  I  must  have 
some  one  to  look  after  it.  And  yet  if  I  don't 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  145 

get  a  covv  I'm  sure  to  be  cheated  in  my  milk  and 
butter." 

"  Yes,  you  are  plainly  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma," 
said  Pierce,  going  across  the  room  to  say  good-bye  to 
Lady  Severn,  and  then  returning  to  shake  hands  with 
Amber. 

"  I  hope  that  you  and  papa  had  a  satisfactory  chat 
together,"  she  said  with  a  note  of  enquiry  in  her  voice. 

"  A  most  satisfactory  chat :  I  think  that  I  con- 
vinced him  that  I  was  not  an  impostor." 

And  so  he  went  away,  narrowly  watched  by  Guy, 
especially  when  he  was  speaking  to  Amber.  Guy  did 
not  at  all  like  that  confidential  exchange  of  phrases  in  an 
undertone.  Pierce  was  clearly  worth  having  an  eye  on. 

"  I  knew  you'd  be  interested  in  hearing  of  my  pur- 
chase," he  remarked  to  Amber,  assuming  the  confi- 
dential tone  that  Pierce  had  dropped. 

"  Oh,  yes ;  we  are  both  greatly  interested,  mother 
and  I,"  said  Amber.  "  But  what  about  your  work  at 
the  school  ?  I  hope  you  don't  intend  to  give  up  your 
work  at  the  school." 

There  was  something  half-hearted  in  his  disclaimer. 
He  cried  : 

"  Oh,  no — no — of  course  not !  "  but  it  was  plain 
that  his  words  did  not  carry  conviction  with  them  to 
Amber,  for  she  shook  her  head  doubtfully. 

"  I'm  afraid  that  if  you  give  all  your  time  up  to 
considering  the  question  of  cows  and  things  of  that 
type  you'll  not  have  much  time  left  to  perfect  your- 
self in  literature,"  she  said. 


146  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

There  was  a  kind  of  hang-literature  expression  on 
his  face  when  she  had  spoken,  and  she  did  not  fail  to 
notice  it ;  she  had  shaken  her  head  once  more  before 
he  hastened  to  assure  her  that  he  had  acquired  his 
new  possession  mainly  to  give  himself  a  chance  of 
doing  some  really  consecutive  literary  work. 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  he,  "  I  find  that  the  distrac- 
tions of  the  town  are  too  great  a  strain  on  me.  I  feel 
that  for  a  man  to  be  at  his  very  best  in  the  literary 
way  he  should  live  a  life  of  complete  retirement — far 
from  the  madding  crowd  and  that,  you  know.  Now, 
I've  been  a  constant  attender  at  the  school  for  the 
past  three  weeks — ask  Barnum  himself  if  I  haven't — 
I  mean  Richmond — Mr.  Richmond.  Why,  only  a 
few  days  ago  he  complimented  me  very  highly  on  my 
purpose.  He  said  that  if  I  persevered  I  might  one 
day  be  in  a  position  to  enter  the  Aunt  Dorothy  class. 
Now,  when  I've  settled  down  properly  at  The  Gables 
I  mean  to  write  an  Aunt  Dorothy  letter  every  week. 
That's  why  I  want  to  be  at  my  best — quite  free  from 
all  the  attractions  of  the  town — I  should  like  to  have 
your  opinion  about  the  cow." 

But  he  was  not  fortunate  enough  to  be  able  to 
learn  all  that  she  thought  on  this  momentous  ques- 
tion, for  Arthur  Galmyn  was  shown  in  and  had  a 
great  deal  to  say  regarding  his  progress  in  the  city. 
He  had  learned  what  contango  really  did  mean  and 
he  hoped  that  he  was  making  the  best  use  of  the  infor- 
mation which  he  had  acquired.  He  was  contemplating  a 
poetical  guide  to  the  Stock  Exchange,  introducing  the 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  147 

current  price  of  the  leading  debenture  issues;  and,  if 
treated  lyrically,  a  Sophoclean  Chorus  dealing  with 
Colonial  securities ;  or  should  it  be  made  the  envoi  of 
a  ballade  or  a  Chaunt  Royal  ?  He  was  anxious  to 
get  Amber's  opinion  on  this  point,  there  was  so  much 
to  be  said  for  and  against  each  scheme. 

Amber  said  she  was  distinctly  opposed  to  the 
mingling  of  poetry  and  prices.  She  hoped  that  Mr. 
Galmyn  was  not  showing  signs  of  lapsing  once  again 
into  the  unprofitable  paths  of  poetry.  Of  course  she 
wished  to  think  the  best  of  every  one,  but  she  really 
felt  that  he  should  be  warned  in  time.  Would  it  not 
be  a  melancholy  thing  if  he  were  to  fall  back  into  his 
old  habits  ?  she  asked  him. 

And  while  he  was  assuring  her  that  she  need  have 
no  apprehension  on  this  score,  as  he  felt  that  he  was 
completely  cured  of  his  old  disorder,  through  six 
months  contact  with  the  flags  of  the  Stock  Exchange, 
Mr.  Willie  Bateman  and  Mr.  Owen  Glendower 
Richmond  were  announced,  and  each  of  them  had  a 
good  deal  to  say  to  Amber. 

What  all  these  young  men  had  to  say  to  her  was  in 
the  nature  of  reporting  progress.  Mr.  Galmyn, 
whom  she  had  turned  from  the  excitement  of  poetry 
to  the  academic  quietude  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  had 
to  tell  her  how  thoughtfully  he  had  made  use  of  some 
fictitious  information  which  he  had  disseminated  for 
the  purpose  of  "  bulling "  a  particular  stock ;  Mr. 
Bateman  had  a  great  deal  to  say  regarding  the  system 
which  he  had  perfected  for  bringing  American  heir- 


148  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

esses  under  the  notice  of  the  old  county  families  j  he 
had  al&o  come  to  her  for  sympathy  in  respect  of  one 
of  his  failures.  He  had  been  entrusted  with  the  in- 
delicate duty  of  obtaining  a  knighthood  for  a  certain 
gentleman  of  no  conspicuous  ability — a  gentleman 
who  was  quite  down  to  the  level  of  the  usual  candi- 
dates for  Knighthood.  He  had  advised  this  gentle- 
man to  offer,  through  the  public  prints,  to  present  his 
valuable  collection  of  Old  Masters  to  the  Nation ; 
and  he  had  done  so.  For  some  reason  or  other — 
possibly  because  all  the  pictures  were  the  most  gen- 
uinely spurious  collection  ever  brought  together  by 
one  man — there  was  really  no  knowing  why — the 
Nation  had  refused  the  gift. 

This  was  one  of  his  failures,  Mr.  Bateman  said ; 
and  it  was  but  indifferently  compensated  for  by  his 
success  in  obtaining  a  popular  preacher  to  deliver  a 
sermon  on  a  novel  lately  published  by  a  lady  whom 
he  had  been  making  widely  conspicuous  for  some 
months  back  as  being  the  most  retiring  woman  in 
England.  The  preacher  had  consented,  and  the 
novel,  which  was  the  most  characteristic  specimen  of 
Nineteenth  Century  illiterature,  was  already  in  its 
sixth  edition. 

"  But  on  the  whole,  I  have  no  reason  to  complain 
of  my  progress  in  my  art, — the  art  which  is  just  now 
obtaining  recognition  as  the  most  important  in  all 
grades  of  society,"  said  Mr.  Bateman.  "The 
Duchesses — well,  just  see  the  attitude  of  the  various 
members  of  a  Ducal  House  to-day.  Her  Grace  is 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  149 

reciting  for  an  imaginary  charity  on  the  boards  of  a 
Music  Hall,  and  hopes  by  that  to  reach  at  a  single 
bound  the  popularity  of  a  Music  Hall  artiste;  an- 
other member  is  pushing  herself  well  to  the  front  as 
the  head  of  the  committee  for  supplying  the  British 
army  with  Tarn  o'  Shanter  caps,  another  of  the  ladies 
is  writing  a  book  on  the  late  war  and  the  most  am- 
bitious of  all  is,  they  say,  going  to  see  what  the 
Divorce  Court  can  do  for  her.  Oh,  no,  the  Duch- 
esses don't  need  my  help;  I  sometimes  envy  them 
their  resources.  But  think  of  the  hundreds  of  the 
aristocracy — the  best  families  in  England,  Miss 
Severn,  who  are  falling  behind  in  the  great  struggle  to 
advertise  themselves  not  from  any  longing  after 
obscurity ;  but  simply  because  they  don't  know  the 
A  B  C  of  the  art.  Yes,  you'll  hear  next  week  of  a 
well-known  and  beautiful  Countess — in  personal  ad- 
vertising l  Once  beautiful  always  beautiful'  is  an 
axiom,  as  you'll  notice  in  every  Society  Column  you 
glance  at — the  beautiful  Countess,  I  say,  will  occupy 
the  pulpit  of  a  high-class  Conventicle." 

"  Following  your  advice  ?  "  said  Amber. 

"I  arranged  every  detail,"  said  Mr.  Bateman  proudly 

And  then  came  the  turn  of  Mr.  Owen  Glendower 
Richmond,  to  report  the  progress  of  the  Technical 
School  of  Literature. 

His  report  was  not  a  long  one. 

"  Miss  Turquoise  B.  Hoskis,  of  Poseidon,  in  the 
State  of  Massachusetts,  has  joined  the  Historical 
Romance  class,"  said  Mr.  Richmond. 


1 50  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  What,  the  daughter  of  the  Pie  King  ?  "  cried  Am- 
ber. 

"The  daughter  of  Hannibal  P.  Hoskis,'the  Pie 
King,"  said  Mr.  Richmond. 

Before  the  suspiration  of  surprise  which  passed 
round  the  drawing-room  at  this  piece  of  news  had 
melted  into  silence,  the  servant  announced  Lord  Lull- 
worth. 

This  was  certainly  a  greater  surprise  for  Amber 
than  the  news  that  the  daughter  of  the  great  Ameri- 
can, the  head  of  the  Pumpkin  Pie  Trust  who  was 
making  his  way  rapidly  in  English  society,  had  be- 
come a  member  of  one  of  Mr.  Richmond's  classes. 
And  that  was  possibly  why  she  was  slightly  put  out  by 
the  appearance  of  the  young  man  who  had  sat  beside 
her  at  the  Ranelagh  dinner.  She  did  not  know  that 
he  had  asked  Lady  Severn  for  permission  to  call  upon 
her,  and  that  Lady  Severn  had  mentioned  Friday 
afternoon  to  him. 

She  could  not  quite  understand  why  she  should  feel 
pleased  at  his  coming — pleased  as  well  as  flushed. 
She  was  acquainted  with  peers  by  the  dozen  and  with 
the  sons  of  peers  by  the  score,  and  yet  somehow  now 
she  felt  as  if  she  were  distinctly  flattered. 

That  was  why  she  asked  him  how  he  was  and 
apologised  for  the  absence  of  her  mother. 

(Lady  Severn  had  left  her  daughter  in  possession 
of  the  drawing-room  when  Mr.  Bateman  was  talking 
about  his  Duchesses :  she  pretended  that  she  had  an 
appointment  which  it  was  necessary  to  keep.) 


CHAPTER  XVII 

LORD  LULLWORTH,  while  he  was  drinking  his  tea 
and  admiring  to  the  full  the  exquisite  electrical  appa- 
ratus by  which  it  was  prepared,  was  giving  some  at- 
tention to  the  other  young  men — Mr.  Richmond 
might  possibly  still  be  thought  of  by  some  people  as  a 
young  man — who  occupied  chairs  or  stools  around 
Miss  Severn's  seat.  Guy  Overton  he  knew  pretty 
well,  and  he  had  never  pretended  that  he  thought 
highly  of  his  talents — by  talents  Lord  Lullworth 
meant  his  seat  on  a  pony  something  between  twelve 
and  thirteen  hands  high — or  of  his  disposition.  (He 
had  heard  of  his  habitually  dining  at  a  greasy  Italian 
restaurant  and  drinking  Chianti  in  half  flasks.) 

He  knew  nothing  about  the  other  men,  but  he  knew 
instinctively  that  he  would  never  think  much  of  them. 

And  then  they  began  to  talk,  and  she  actually  lis- 
tened to  them  and  pretended  that  she  was  interested 
in  what  they  were  talking  about — he  was  anxious  to 
think  the  best  of  her,  so  he  took  it  for  granted  that 
her  attention  to  what  they  were  saying  was  only  sim- 
ulated. He  was  not  fond  of  hearing  himself  talk, 
so  he  did  not  feel  at  all  left  out  in  the  cold  while  the 
others  were — well,  the  exact  word  that  was  in  his 
mind  as  he  listened  to  them  was  the  word  "jabber- 
ing." They  were  jabbering,  the  whole  racket  of 
them,  weren't  they  ? 


152  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  We  really  can't  spare  you  another  week,  Miss 
Severn,"  one  of  the  racket  was  saying — the  eldest  of 
them,  he  was  as  high-toned  as  to  his  dress  as  a  shop- 
walker in  a  first-class  establishment;  a  figurant  whom 
he  greatly  resembled  in  Lord  Lull  worth's  judgment. 
"  Oh,  no ;  we  cannot  spare  you  so  soon.  I  am  hold- 
ing a  special  class  on  The  Novel  With  A  Purpose.  I 
think  you  may  find  it  interesting,  though  doubtless 
you  are  acquainted  with  some  points  in  the  technique 
of  this  class  of  fiction.  The  title,  for  instance ;  the 
title  must  be  sharp,  quick,  straightforward,  like  the 
bark  of  a  dog,  you  know  :  c  The  Atheist,' c  The  Nig- 
ger,' 'The  Haggis,'  'The  Bog-trotter,'  'The  Hum- 
bug ' — all  these  are  taking  titles ;  they  have  bark  in 
them.  And  then  in  regard  to  the  Purpose — in  The 
Novel  With  A  Purpose,  no  one  should  have  the  least 
idea  of  what  the  Purpose  is,  but  one  must  never  be  al- 
lowed to  forget  for  a  moment  that  the  Purpose  is 
there.  It  is,  however,  always  as  well  for  a  writer  of 
such  a  novel  to  engage  the  services  of  an  interviewer 
on  the  eve  of  the  publication  of  the  novel  to  tell  the 
public  how  great  are  his  aims,  and  then  he  must  not 
forget  to  talk  of  the  sea — that  sea,  so  full  of  wonder 
and  mystery  beside  which  The  Novel  With  A  Pur- 
pose must  be  written  and  a  hint  must  be  dropped  that 
all  the  wonder  and  mystery  of  the  sea,  and  the  sound 
of  the  weeping  of  the  women  and  the  wailing  of  the 
children,  and  the  strong  true  beating  hearts  of  great 
men  anxious  to  strangle  women  and  to  repent  grandly 
in  the  last  chapter,  will  be  found  in  the  book,  to- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  153 

gather  with  a.  fine  old  story — as  old  as  the  Bible — if 
you  forget  to  drag  the  Bible  into  the  interview  no  one 
will  know  that  you  have  written  The  Novel  With  A 
Purpose — one  story  will  do  duty  for  half  a  dozen 
novels  :  two  women  in  love  with  one  man — something 
Biblical  like  that.  But  doubtless  you  have  studied 
the  technique  of  this  class  of  fiction,  Miss  Severn." 

"  I  have  never  studied  it  so  closely,"  replied  Am- 
ber. "  I  have  always  read  books  for  pleasure,  not  for 
analysis." 

And  Lord  Lullworth  kept  staring  away  at  Mr. 
Richmond,  and  then  at  Amber.  What  the  mischief 
were  they  talking  about  anyway  ? 

And  then  Willie  Bateman  chipped  in. 

"  I  have  always  regarded  the  Interview  as  obsolete," 
said  he.  "  It  does  not  pay  the  photographer's  ex- 
penses. Even  the  bulldog  as  an  advertising  medium 
for  an  author  has  had  his  day — like  every  other  dog. 
A  publisher  told  me  with  tears  in  his  eyes  that  he  saw 
the  time  when  the  portrait  of  an  author's  bull  pup  in 
a  lady's  weekly  journal  would  have  exhausted  a  large 
edition  of  his  novel — even  a  volume  of  pathetic 
poems  has  been  known  to  run  into  a  second  edition 
of  twenty-five  copies  after  the  appearance  in  an  even- 
ing paper  of  the  poet's  black-muzzled,  pig-tailed  pug. 
I'm  going  to  give  the  Cat  a  trial  some  of  these  days. 
I  believe  that  the  Manx  Cat  has  a  brilliant  future  in 
store  for  it,  and  the  Persian — perhaps  a  common  or 
garden-wall  cat  will  do  as  well  as  any  other — I 
wouldn't  be  bound  with  the  stringency  of  the  laws  of 


i54  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

the  Medes  and  Persians  as  to  the  breed — I'd  just  give 
the  Cat  a  chance.  Properly  run  I  believe  that  it  will 
give  an  author  of  distinction  as  good  a  show  as  his 
boasted  bull  terrier." 

And  Lord  Lullworth  stared  away  at  the  speaker. 
Great  Queen  of  Sheba !  What  was  he  talking  about 
anyway  ? 

And  then  Amber,  who  had  been  listening  very 
politely  to  both  of  the  men  who  had  been  trying  to 
impart  their  ideas  to  her,  turned  to  Lord  Lull- 
worth  and  asked  him  if  he  had  heard  that  Mr.  Over- 
ton  had  purchased  The  Gables,  and  when  he  replied 
with  a  grin  that  he  hoped  Overton  hadn't  paid  too 
much  money  for  it,  Overton  hastened  to  place  his 
mind  at  ease  on  this  point.  The  purchase  of  the 
place  had  involved  an  immediate  outlay  of  a  consid- 
erable sum  of  money,  he  admitted,  but  by  giving  up 
his  chambers  in  town  and  the  exercise  of  a  few  rad- 
ical economies  he  hoped  to  see  his  way  through  the 
transaction.  Would  Lord  Lullworth  come  down 
some  week's  end  and  have  a  look  round  ? 

Lord  Lullworth  smilingly  asked  for  some  superfi- 
cial information  regarding  the  Cellar. 

And  then  Mr.  Owen  Glendower  Richmond  and 
Arthur  Galmyn  went  off  together,  and  when  Guy 
Overton  found  that  he  had  to  hurry  off — the  cuisine  at 
'the  Casa  Maccaroni  was  at  its  best  between  the  hours 
of  six  and  seven — Willie  Bateman,  who  wanted  to 
have  a  quiet  word  with  him  went  away  by  his  side. 
(He  wondered  if  Guy  would  think  it  worth  his  while 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  155 

to  pay  a  hundred  pounds  to  have  a  stereo-block  made 
of  the  river  view  of  The  Gables  for  an  evening  paper, 
to  be  inserted  with  a  historical  sketch  of  the  house 
and  some  account  of  the  family  of  the  new  pur- 
chaser.) 

Lord  Lullworth  laughed  pleasantly — confidentially, 
when  he  and  Amber  were  left  alone  together. 

"  They  are  all  so  clever,"  said  Amber  apologetic- 
ally. She  had  really  quite  a  faculty  interpreting  peo- 
ple's thoughts. 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  they  are,  as  you  say,  a  rummy 
lot." 

Then  she  too  laughed. 

"  That's  your  way  of  putting  it,"  she  said. 

"  I  suppose  so.  What  fun  chaps  can  find  in  jab- 
bering away  like  that  beats  me.  They're  a  bit  pink- 
eyed,  aren't  they  now  ?  " 

Amber  evaded  a  question  which  might  possibly  be 
enigmatical,  she  thought. 

"  But  they  are  really  very  clever,"  said  she. 
"  Arthur  Galmyn  was  a  poet,  but  I  saw  that  he  had 
not  patience  enough  to  wait  for  fame  to  come  to  him." 

"  Why  couldn't  he  buy  a  practice  in  a  populous 
suburban  district  ?  "  asked  Lord  Lullworth.  "  If  a 
chap  can't  succeed  as  a  specialist  in  town  he  should 
set  up  as  a  general  practitioner  in  the  suburbs  or  in 
the  provinces." 

"  I  suppose  a  poet  is  a  sort  of  literary  specialist," 
said  Amber.  "  Never  mind, — he  is  all  right  now  :  he 
is  making  money  on  the  Stock  Exchange." 


156  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  You  made  him  go  on  the  Stock  Exchange  ?  " 

11  Oh,  yes  ;  we  talked  it  over  together.  And  I  got 
Guy  Overton  to  join  the  Technical  School  of  Litera- 
ture, and  I  believe  he  is  improved  by  doing  so  al- 
ready." 

"  And  you  got  the  other  chap  to  set  up  the  school, 
I  suppose  ?  " 

"  It  was  an  old  idea  of  mine.  When  people  have 
a  Conservatoire  of  Music,  and  the  Academy  School 
of  Painting,  why  should  the  art  of  Literary  Composi- 
tion be  allowed  to  struggle  on  as  best  it  can  without 
instruction  or  advice  ?  " 

"  That's  just  what  I  should  like  to  know.  And  the 
other  bounder — I  mean  the  chap  who  talked  that 
about  bulldogs  and  the  cats  and  things — a  bit  of  a  rotter 
he  was,  wasn't  he  ?  Did  you  advise  him  in  any  di- 
rection ?  I  didn't  quite  make  out  what  his  line  was." 

"Yes,  it  was  I  who  suggested  to  him  the  splendid 
possibilities  there  were  in  the  way  of  advertising  things. 
I  showed  him  in  what  a  haphazard  way  people  adver- 
tised just  now,  and  persuaded  him  that  there  was  money 
in  any  systematic  scheme  of  advertising,  and  he  has 
gone  far  ahead  of  anything  I  ever  imagined  to  be  pos- 
sible." 

"I  should  think  he  has.  And  what  are  they  up 
to,  the  lot  of  them,  can  you  guess,  Miss  Severn  ?  " 

"  Up  to  ? — what  are  they  up  to  ?  Why,  haven't  I 
just  explained  that  each  of  them  is  making  a  profes- 
sion   " 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  but  do  you  fancy  that  they're  doing  it 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  157 

for  love  of  the  profession  or  for — for — any  other  rea- 
son ?  " 

"  I  don't  quite  see  what  you  mean,  Lord  Lullworth." 

"  It's  a  bit  rough  to  be  frank  with  a  girl ;  and  it's 
rarely  that  a  chap  has  to  say  just  what  he  means,  but 
there  are  times  .  .  ." 

He  spoke  apologetically  and  paused,  allowing  his 
smile  to  rest  upon  her  for  a  moment.  It  was  the 
smile  of  a  man  who  hopes  he  hasn't  gone  too  far,  and 
trusts  to  get  out  of  an  untenable  position  by  the  aid 
of  a  temporising  smile. 

She  returned  his  smile  quite  pleasantly.  She  knew 
that  the  sentences  over  the  utterance  of  which  men 
hesitate  are  invariably  the  most  interesting  that  they 
have  to  speak. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Everybody  speaks 
frankly  to  me :  they  don't  treat  me  as  they  do  other 
girls,  you  know." 

u  It's  a  dangerous  experiment  talking  frankly  to  a 
girl,"  said  he.  "  But  if  it  comes  to  that,  it's  not  so 
dangerous  an  experiment  as  a  girl  talking  frankly  to  a 
man — leading  him  to  do  things  that  he  hasn't  a  mind 
to  do — may  be  that  he  hates  doing." 

"  I  was  born  in  an  atmosphere  of  experiments," 
said  she.  "  I  delight  in  having  dealings  with  new 
forces,  and  making  out  their  respective  coefficients 
of  energy." 

"  Oh ;  then  you  don't  happen  to  think  that  these 
chaps  who  were  here  just  now  are  in  love  with  you  ? 
That's  frank  enough,  isn't  it  ?  " 


158  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

Her  face  had  become  roseate,  but  she  was  not 
angry.  Whatever  she  may  have  been  she  was  suffi- 
ciently like  other  girls  to  be  able  to  refrain  from  get- 
ting angry  at  the  suggestion  that  four  young  men  were 
in  love  with  her  at  the  same  time. 

"It's  nonsense  enough,"  she  said.  "You  have 
quite  misunderstood  the  situation,  Lord  Lullworth. 
I  like  Guy  Overton  and  all  the  others  greatly,  and  I 
hope  they  like  me.  But  they  are  no  more  in  love 
with  me  than  I  am  in  love  with  them." 

"  Do  you  fancy  that  a  chap  allows  himself  to  be 
led  about  by  a  girl  all  for  the  fun  of  the  thing  ?  "  he 
asked. 

"  Why  should  a  man  think  it  ridiculous  for  a 
woman  to  be  his  friend  and  to  give  him  the  advice  of 
a  friend — the  advice  that  he  would  welcome  if  it 
were  to  come  from  a  brother  ?  "  she  enquired. 

"  I  don't  know  why,  but  I  know  that  he  does," 
said  Lord  Lullworth.  "Anyhow,  you  don't  think  of 
any  of  the  chaps  who  were  here  as  a  lover  ?  " 

"  I  do  not,"  she  cried  emphatically — almost 
eagerly. 

"That's  all  right,"  he  said  quietly — almost  sympa- 
thetically. 

"  It  is  all  right,"  she  said.  "  I  believe  in  the  value 
of  friendship  according  to  Plato." 

"  Have  you  ever  thought  of  calculating  its  co- 
efficient of  energy,  or  its  breaking  strain  ?  "  said  he. 

"  I  do  not  like  people  who  make  fun — who  try  to 
make  fun  of  what  I  believe,  Lord  Lullworth,"  said  she. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  159 

u  Do  you  dislike  alarum  clocks  ? "  he  asked 
blandly. 

"  Alarum  clocks  ?  "     She  was  puzzled. 

"  Yes ;  I'm  an  alarum  clock — one  of  the  cheap 
make,  I  admit,  but  a  going  concern  and  quite  ef- 
fective. I  want  to  rattle  in  your  ears  until  your  eyes 
are  opened." 

"  You  certainly  do  the  rattling  very  well.  But  I'm 
not  asleep.  I  know  what  you  mean  to  say  about  my 
friends." 

"  I  don't  mean  to  say  anything  about  them.  I 
don't  want  to  try  to  make  them  out  to  be  quite  such 
soft  roes  as  you  would  have  me  think  they  are.  I 
don't  want  to  talk  of  them ;  I  want  to  talk  of  you." 

"  Of  me  ?     Well  ?  " 

"Yes,  and  of  me." 

u  Excellent  topics  both." 

"  Yes ;  but  the  two  of  us  only  make  up  one  topic, 
and  this  is  it.  Now  listen.  Your  mother  asked  me 
to  call  and  have  tea  some  afternoon.  If  she  hadn't 
asked  me  I  would  have  asked  her  permission  to  do  so. 
I  came  pretty  soon  after  her  invitation,  didn't  I  ?  " 

"  I'm  so  sorry  that  she  has  a  Committee  meeting 
this  afternoon." 

"  It  doesn't  make  any  difference  to  me — that  is,  in 
what  I  have  to  say  to  you.  And  what  I  have  to  say 
to  you  is  this;  I  came  early  to  see  you  and  I'm  com- 
ing often — very  often — you  have  no  notion  how  often 
— I  don't  believe  I  quite  know  it  myself.  Now  no 
matter  how  often  I  come  I  want  you  to  understand 


160  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

distinctly  from  the  first  that  I  disclaim  all  intention 
of  using  Plato  as  an  umbrella  to  sit  under  with  you. 
I  am  coming  in  a  strictly  anti-Platonic  spirit." 

He  had  grown  a  bit  red  and  she  had  flushed  all 
over. 

"  Go  on — go  on ;  tell  me  all  you  have  to  say ; 
it's  quite — quite — funny — yes,  funny,"  she  said,  and 
there  was  something  of  bewilderment  in  her  voice. 
"  I  never — never — heard  anything  so — so  queer — so 
straightforward.  Go  on." 

"  I  have  really  said  all  that  I  came  to  say — maybe 
a  trifle  more,"  he  said.  "  I'm  not  going  to  make  an 
ass  of  myself  leading  you  to  fancy  that  I'm  coming 
here  as  a  casual  acquaintance  having  no  designs  in  my 
heart  against  you — I  mean,  for  you.  I  don't  want 
you  to  fancy  that  I'm  coming  here  to  talk  to  you 
about  books,  or  pictures,  for  the  sake  of  exchanging 
opinions  in  a  strictly  platonic  way.  No,  I  want  you 
to  know  from  the  outset  that  I'm  coming  as  a  possible 
lover." 

"  I  understand — oh,  quite  clearly — you  have  made 
the  position  quite  clear  to  me ;  only  let  me  tell  you 
at  once,  Lord  Lullworth  that — that " 

"Now  there  you  go  treating  me  as  disdainfully 
as  if  I  had  actually  declared  myself  to  be  your  lover. 
I'm  nothing  of  the  sort,  let  me  tell  you.  I'm  only 
the  rough  material  out  of  which  a  lover  may  be 
formed.  I'm  a  possible  lover,  so  I  should  be  treated 
very  gently — just  the  way  that  you  would  treat  a  baby 
feeling  that  it  may  one  day  grow  up  to  be  a  man.  At 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  161 

the  same  time  nothing  may  really  come  of  the  busi- 
ness. Cupid,  the  god  of  love  is  always  shown  as  a 
child,  because  the  people  who  started  the  idea  had 
before  them  the  statistics  of  infant  mortality ;  so 
many  little  Loves  die  when  they  are  young  and  never 
grow  up  at  all." 

"  They  do — they  do.  Isn't  it  a  blessing  ?  You 
have  only  seen  me  twice  and  yet  you " 

"  My  dear  Miss  Severn,  I've  seen  you  very  often. 
I  have  been  looking  at  you  for  the  past  eighteen 
months,  and  I  thought  you  the  nicest  girl  I  had  ever 
seen.  I  found  out  who  you  were,  and  it  was  I  who 
got  old  Shirley  to  get  up  his  dinner  to  give  me  a 
chance  of  meeting  you ;  and  I  found  you  nicer  even 
than  I  allowed  myself  to  hope  you  would  be.  So  I'm 
coming  to  see  you  very  often  on  the  chance  that 
something  may  come  of  it.  If  after  a  while — a  year 
or  so — you  find  me  a  bit  of  a  bore,  you  just  tell  me 
to  clear  off,  and  I'll  clear  without  a  back  word.  Now 
you  know  just  what  my  idea  is.  I'm  not  a  lover  yet 
but  I  may  grow  up  to  be  a  lover.  You  may  tell  Lady 
Severn  all  this — and  your  father  too,  if  you  think  it 
worth  while — if  you  think  anything  will  come  of  the 
business." 

"  I  won't  trouble  either  of  them.  It's  not  worth 
while." 

"  I  dare  say  you  are  right — only  .  .  .  Well, 
you  are  forewarned  anyway.  Good-bye." 

"Good-bye,"  said  she.  "This  is  the  second  time 
I  have  seen  you  in  my  life.  I  don't  care  how  soon 


162  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

you  come  again,  but  if  you  never  do  come  again  I 
promise  you  that  my  pillow  will  not  be  wet  with 
bitter  tears  of  disappointment." 

"  Same  here,"  he  cried  briskly,  when  he  was  at  the 
door.  He  laughed  and  went  out  and  closed  the  door. 
In  a  moment,  however,  he  opened  the  door,  and  took 
a  step  towards  her. 

"  No ;  I  find  that  I  was  wrong — I  should  not  have 
said  l  same  here.'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  find  that  I'm 
more  of  a  lover  than  I  thought.  Since  I  have  been 
with  you  here  I  am  twice  the  lover  that  I  was  when 
I  entered  this  room.  No,  I  should  be  greatly  disap- 
pointed if  you  were  to  tell  me  that  I  must  not 
return." 

"  Then  I  won't ;  only  .  .  .  oh,  take  my  ad- 
vice and  hurry  away  before  I  have  time  to  say  what 
I  have  on  my  mind  to  say." 

"  I  know  it  already ;  and  I  also  know  that  you'll 
never  tell  it  to  me.  Good-bye  again." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

WHEN  she  was  quite  sure  that  he  had  gone — quite 
gone,  beyond  the  likelihood  of  another  return  to  say 
something  that  he  had  omitted  to  say  or  to  take  back 
something  that  he  had  already  said,  she  threw  herself 
back  on  a  sofa  and  yawned  ostentatiously — almost  in- 
sultingly at  her  own  reflection  in  a  mirror  that  hung 
in  the  centre  of  one  of  the  silk  panels — and  then  it 
seemed  that  it  was  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  that  she 
perceived  how  curious  was  the  design  of  the  mirror. 
The  silvered  glass  was  a  Florentine  one  and  at  one 
curved  edge  it  was  cut  with  a  charming  intaglio  of 
a  boy  chasing  a  butterfly.  On  the  opposite  curve 
there  was  a  girl  with  a  bird  on  her  finger.  Butter- 
flies and  birds  were  cut  all  over  the  glass  except  in 
the  centre.  The  frame  of  the  mirror  was  of  beaten 
silver,  and  the  design  was  that  of  a  number  of  cupids 
bending,  as  it  were,  over  the  brink  of  the  glass  to  see 
the  face  that  it  reflected.  And  some  were  fixing 
their  arrows  in  their  little  silver  bows  to  shoot  at  the 
glass  and  its  reflection. 

She  lay  back  and  laughed  quite  merrily  at  the 
thought  that  often  as  she  had  looked  at  that  charming 
work  of  art,  she  had  never  before  noticed  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  design.  It  interested  her  so  greatly 
just  now  that  she  actually  rose  from  her  sofa  and 
stood  before  it,  examining  its  infinity  of  detail  for 
163 


1 64  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

several  minutes.  Then  she  threw  herself  once  again 
back  among  her  cushions  and  laughed. 

She  had  never  before  had  such  a  funny  interview 
with  any  one  in  all  her  life,  she  thought,  and  the 
funny  part  of  it  all  was  to  be  found  in  the  seriousness 
of  the  man.  If  he  had  meant  to  be  jocular  he  would 
have  been  a  dead  failure.  But  he  had  been  desperately 
serious  from  the  moment  he  had  entered  the  room, 
and  had  gone  on  talking  gravely  as  if  he  had  been 
talking  sense  and  not  nonsense. 

That  was  the  funny  part  of  the  business. 

The  aid  of  Mr.  Richmond  had  never  been  needed 
to  make  her  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  novel  writers 
who  produce  the  greatest  amount  of  nonsense  are 
those  who  write  seriously — who  take  themselves 
seriously  and  talk  about  having  a  message  to  deliver. 
Such,  she  was  well  aware,  are  the  novel  writers  who 
perish  after  a  year  or  two,  for  the  only  imperishable 
quality  in  a  novel  is  wit.  Wit  is  the  boric  acid  that 
makes  a  novel  "keep,"  she  knew.  But  here  was  a 
live  man  coming  to  her  with  a  message  to  deliver  to 
her  ears,  and  although  he  took  himself  quite  seriously 
she  had  not  found  him  dull — certainly  not  dull  as  the 
novels  with  the  "  message  "  are  dull.  What  he  had 
to  say  to  her  had  surprised  her  at  the  outset  of  his  in- 
terview with  her  and  had  kept  her  excited  until  he 
had  gone  away — nay,  longer,  for  what  he  had  said  to 
her  on  his  return  after  an  absence  of  perhaps  ten 
seconds,  was,  she  thought,  the  most  exciting  part  of 
her  afternoon. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  165 

But  after  all  he  had  talked  such  nonsense  as  a  child 
who  knew  nothing  of  the  world  would  talk.  All  the 
time  that  he  was  talking  to  her  she  felt  that  she  was 
listening  to  the  prattle  of  a  boy  child  asking  her  if  she 
would  play  at  being  sweethearts,  and  laying  down  cer- 
tain rules  of  the  game — decreeing  that  if  he  were  to 
get  tired  of  having  her  for  a  sweetheart,  she  must  not 
get  cross  with  him  for  leaving  her,  and  at  the  same 
time,  with  a  high  sense  of  fairness,  affirming  that  if 
she  tired  of  him  and  told  him  to  go  back  to  the 
nursery  he  would  not  beat  her  with  his  fists. 

Yes,  he  had  talked  just  as  any  little  boy  in  a  sailor 
suit,  and  with  a  little  bucket  in  one  hand  and  a  little 
spade  in  the  other  might  talk  while  the  day  was 
young,  and  his  gravity  had  made  the  scene  very 
funny  to  her. 

But  then  the  fact  of  her  thinking  of  the  resem- 
blance between  him  and  the  little  boy,  caused  her  to 
recall  what  he  had  said  about  treating  him  as  gently  as 
a  baby  should  be  treated.  Yes,  he  was  not  to  be 
looked  on  as  a  lover,  but  only  as  the  rough  material 
that  might  eventually  shape  itself  into  a  lover.  This 
was  one  of  the  rules  of  the  game  at  which  he  wanted 
her  to  play,  and  it  was  quite  worthy  of  him. 

At  first  she  had  felt  angry  with  him — slightly 
angry  ;  but  then  she  felt  that  she  would  be  a  fool  if 
she  were  to  be  seriously  angry  with  a  little  boy  for 
asking  her  to  play  at  being  grown  up  and  selling  tea  and 
sugar  with  him  in  a  shop  made  of  oyster-shells.  She 
had  then  only  become  amused  at  the  way  he  talked — 


1 66  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

she  was  amused  at  it  still,  as  she  lay  back  among  her 
cushions. 

She  was  glad  on  the  whole  that  she  had  not  snubbed 
him — that  she  had  even  taken  him  seriously ;  and  she 
thought  that  it  was  this  reflection  upon  the  extent  of 
her  consideration  for  his  feelings — that  amour  propre 
which  children  hold  so  dear — that  made  her  feel  so 
pleased  as  she  did. 

Although  she  knew  that  the  young  man  had  talked 
nonsense — making  an  absurd  proposal  to  her,  and 
making  it  too  on  a  purely  unintellectual  basis ;  as  if 
she,  a  girl  born  in  an  atmosphere  of  intellectuality 
and  breathing  of  this  atmosphere  into  her  life,  could 
listen  for  a  moment  to  a  proposal  made  to  the  emo- 
tional and  not  to  the  intellectual  side  of  her  nature  ! — 
although  he  had  talked  this  nonsense,  still  she  could 
not  deny  that  she  felt  pleased  at  the  thought  of  it  all. 
The  air  somehow  seemed  fresher  about  her,  and  she 
breathed  more  freely.  Had  none  of  those  writers 
with  a  message  suggested  that  an  atmosphere  saturated 
with  intellectuality  is  like  Rimmel's  shop  on  a  spring 
day  :  one  longs  to  get  out  once  more  into  the  pure 
scentless  air  of  Nature's  own  breathing  ? 

She  felt  all  the  first  sweet  satisfaction  which  comes 
from  a  good  romp  on  the  sands  with  a  child  who, 
though  it  has  not  conversed  on  intellectual  topics,  has 
brought  one  into  the  open  air — into  the  air  that  blows 
across  the  sands  from  the  sea. 

And  she  was  glad  that  she  had  not  snubbed  him 
when  he  sneered  at  that  triumph  of  the  intellect 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  167 

known  as  Platonic  friendship.  She  was  happy  to 
think  that  she  was  an  exponent  of  that  actuality  of 
intellectuality,  and  that  in  his  hands  it  had  become  a 
great  force  tending  towards  the  civilisation  of  man. 

To  be  sure  civilisation  has  always  been  opposed  to 
Nature  in  its  operations,  and  the  best  civilisation  is 
that  which  forms  the  most  satisfactory  compromise 
with  Nature.  She  knew  all  this,  and  a  good  deal  more 
in  the  same  line  of  elementary  biology,  and  it  was  just 
because  she  had  proofs  of  the  success  of  her  plans  of 
Platonic  friendship  she  was  disposed  to  regard  it  as 
one  of  the  greatest  of  civilising  forces. 

All  the  same  she  felt  glad  that  she  had  refrained 
from  severity  towards  him  when  he  had  sneered  at  this 
force.  She  knew  that  if  she  had  done  so,  she  would 
now  feel  ill  at  ease.  If  a  baby  boy  jeers  at  the  pre- 
cession of  the  Equinoxes — a  phrase  which  it  cannot 
even  pronounce — an  adult  would  surely  feel  ill  at 
ease  at  rebuking  it  for  its  ignorance.  But  Amber 
Severn  felt  that  she  had  no  reason  for  self-reproach  in 
the  matter  of  her  interview  with  young  Lord  Lull- 
worth. 

But  then  she  was  led  to  do  a  foolish  thing,  for  she 
began  comparing  Lord  Lullworth  with  the  other 
young  men  who  had  been  visiting  her  in  the  fulness 
of  their  disinterested  friendship  for  her.  He  was  the 
best  looking  of  them  all,  she  knew.  He  stood  up 
straio-hter  and  he  looked  at  her  straighter  in  the  face 

D  O 

than  the  best  of  them  had  done.  If  it  came  to  a 
fight  .  .  . 


168  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

And  hereupon  this  young  woman  who  had  been 
born  in,  and  who  had  lived  in,  an  atmosphere  of  in- 
tellectuality was  led  to  think  of  the  chances  that  the 
young  man  who  had  just  gone  from  her  would  have 
in  a  rough  and  tumble  tussle  with  the  three  others. 
She  felt  herself,  curiously  enough,  taking  his  part  in 
this  hustle  and  tussle — she  actually  became  his  backer, 
and  was  ready  to  convince  any  one  who  might  differ 
from  her  that  he  could  lick  three  of  them — that  horrid 
word  of  the  butcher's  boy  was  actually  in  her  mind  as 
she  thought  over  the  possible  contest,  though  why  she 
should  think  over  anything  of  the  sort  she  would  have 
had  difficulty  in  explaining  to  the  satisfaction  even  of 
herself.  But  somehow  thinking  of  the  men  altogether 
— they  were  five  of  them  all  told — made  a  comparison 
between  them  inevitable,  and  as  Lord  Lullworth  had 
frankly  admitted  that  he  was  not  intellectual  she  had, 
out  of  a  sense  of  fair  play  to  him,  drawn  the  com- 
parison from  an  unintellectual  standpoint. 

This  explanation — it  is  not  wholly  plausible — never 
occurred  to  her  and  she  was  therefore  left  in  a  condi- 
tion bordering  on  wonderment  when  she  pulled  her- 
self up,  so  to  speak,  in  her  attempt  to  witness  the 
exciting  finish  of  the  contest  which  had  suggested 
itself  to  her  when  she  involuntarily  compared  the 
young  man  who  had  lately  stood  before  her,  with  the 
other  four. 

She  was  startled,  and  gave  a  little  laugh  of  derision 
at  the  foolish  exuberance  of  her  own  fancy  ;  and  then 
she  became  angry,  and  because  she  felt  that  she  had 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  169 

made  a  fool  of  herself,  she  called  Lord  Lullworth  a 
fool — not  in  a  whisper,  but  quite  out  loud. 

"  He  is  a  fool — a  fool — and  I  never  want  to  see 
him  again  !  "  she  said. 

And  then  the  servant  opened  the  door  and  an- 
nounced Mr.  Pierce  Winwood,  and  withdrew  and 
closed  the  door. 

She  sat  upright  on  the  sofa,  staring  at  him,  her  left 
hand  pressing  the  centre  of  a  cushion  of  Aubusson 
tapestry,  and  her  right  one  a  big  pillow  of  amber 
brocade. 

She  stared  at  him. 

He  gave  a  rather  sheepish  laugh,  and  twirled  his 
cane  till  the  handle  caught  his  gloves  which  he  held 
in  his  hand,  and  sent  them  flying.  He  gave  another 
laugh  picking  them  up. 

She  was  bewildered.  Matters  were  becoming  too 
much  for  her.  Had  he  actually  been  lunching  in  the 
house  that  day  or  had  she  dreamt  it  ?  It  seemed  to 
her  that  only  an  hour  had  passed  since  she  had  said 
good-bye  to  him,  and  yet  here  he  was  entering  as  a 
casual  visitor  might  enter. 

She  rose  and  mechanically  held  out  her  hand  to  him. 

"  How  do  you  do  ?  "  she  said.  "  How  do  you  do  ? 
A  warm  afternoon,  is  it  not  ?  You  look  warm." 

And  so  he  did.      He  looked  extremely  warm. 

"  I  am  afraid  that  I  have  surprised  you,"  said  he. 
"  I'm  so  sorry.  But  when  a  chap  is  bound  on  mak- 
ing an  ass  of  himself  there's  really  no  holding  him 
back." 


1 7o  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

She  felt  her  face  becoming  as  warm  as  his  appeared 
to  be ;  for  the  terrible  thought  flashed  upon  her : 

"  This  man  too  has  come  to  me  to  offer  himself  as 
the  rough  material  from  which  a  lover  may  one  day 
be  made." 

It  seemed  to  her  that  there  was  any  amount  of 
rough  material  of  lovers  available  within  easy  reach 
this  particular  afternoon. 

"  After  leaving  here  an  hour  ago,"  he  said,  "  I  had 
a  rather  important  call  to  make,  so  I  didn't  make  it 
but  went  for  a  long  walk  instead — I  think  I  must 
have  walked  four  or  five  miles  and  I  don't  think  I 
kept  my  pace  down  as  I  should  have,  considering  the 
day  it  is." 

"  Well  ?  "  she  said  when  he  paused.  "  Well,  Mr, 
Winwood  ? " 

"  Well,  you  see  I  was  bent  on  thinking  out  some- 
thing, and  I  thought  it  out,  and  I  have  come  back  to 
you,  you  see,  because  you  are,  I  think,  disposed  to 
be  friendly  to  me  and  I  know  that  you  are  her  closest 
friend — that  is  why  I  ventured  to  come  back  to  you." 

"Yes — yes,"  she  said  slowly  and  with  a  liberal 
space  between  each  utterance  of  the  word.  "Yes; 
but — what  is  the  matter  ?  What  have  I  to  say  to — 
to — whatever  it  is  ?  " 

"  I  must  really  try  to  tell  you,"  said  he.  "  Yes, 
the  fact  is,  I  hope  you  will  not  think  me  impudent, 
but  it  is  a  serious  matter  to  me.  I  have — that  is,  I 
wish  to — Miss  Severn,  I  am,  as  you  know,  a  stranger 
here.  I  do  not  know  many  people,  and  I  have  no 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  171 

means  of  finding  out — except  through  you — what  I 
should  very  much  like  to  know.  You  see  I  don't 
want  to  make  too  great  a  fool  of  myself  altogether; 
that  is  why  I  hope  you  will  not  think  me  impudent 
when  I  ask  you  if  you  can  tell  me  if — if — Miss  West 
is  engaged  to  marry  some  one.  You  can  well  believe, 
I  am  sure,  that  when  I  saw  her  for  the  first  time — 
when  I  saw  her  here  to-day,  it  seemed  to  me  quite 
impossible  that  such  a  girl — so  beautiful — so  gracious 
— so  womanly,  should  remain  free.  It  seemed  quite 
impossible  that  no  one  should  wish — but  of  course 
though  every  one  who  sees  her  must  feel  how — how 
she  stands  alone — she  would  not  lightly  think  of  giv- 
ing her  promise — in  short — I Yes,  I  believe  that 

I  have  said  all  that  I  wished  to  say.  I  have  said  it 
badly,  I  know ;  but  perhaps  I  have  made  myself 
moderately  clear  to  you — clear  enough  for  you  to  give 
me  an  answer." 

He  had  seated  himself  close  to  her  and  had  bent 
forward,  turning  his  hat  over  and  over  between  his 
hands  and  showing  himself  to  be  far  from  self-pos- 
sessed while  stammering  out  his  statement. 

But  Amber,  although  she  had  never  before  been 
made  the  confidante  of  a  man,  and  although  she  had 
just  passed  through  a  curious  experience  of  her  own, 
felt,  so  soon  as  it  dawned  on  her  that  the  man  beside 
her  was  in  love  with  Josephine,  both  interested  and 
became  more  than  sympathetic. 

The  pleasure  she  experienced  so  soon  as  she  be- 
came aware  of  the  fact  that  it  was  not  to  herself  he 


1 72  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

was  about  to  offer  himself  as  the  rough  material  of  a 
lover,  after  the  fashion  of  the  day,  caused  her  to  feel 
almost  enthusiastic  as  she  said  : 

"You  have  expressed  yourself  admirably,  Mr.  Win- 
wood  ;  and  I  can  tell  you  at  once  that  Josephine  West 
is  not  engaged  to  marry  any  one — that  is — well,  I 
think  I  am  justified  in  speaking  so  decidedly,  for  if 
she  had  promised  to  marry  any  one  I  am  certain  that 
she  would  tell  me  of  it  before  any  one  else  in  the 
world." 

He  rose  and  held  out  his  hand  to  her,  saying : 

"  Thank  you,  Miss  Severn — thank  you.  I  knew 
that  I  should  be  safe  in  coming  to  you  in  this  matter, 
you  have  shown  yourself  to  be  so  kind — so  gracious. 
You  can  understand  how  my  position  in  this  country 
is  not  quite  the  same  as  that  of  the  men  who  have 
lived  here  all  their  lives — who  are  in  your  set  and 
who  hear  of  every  incident  as  it  occurs.  I  thought 
it  quite  possible  that  she  might  .  .  .  well,  I  hope 
you  don't  think  me  impudent." 

"  I  do  not  indeed,"  she  said,  "  I  feel  that  you  have 
done  me  great  honour,  and  I  think  that  you  are — you 
are — manly.  I  think,  you  know,  that  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  manliness  about  men — more  than  I  thought, 
and  I  tell  you  that  I  always  did  think  well  of  men. 
I  believe  that  there  is  a  great  future  awaiting  them." 

"  I  hope  that  your  optimism  will  be  rewarded," 
said  he.  "  Of  one  thing  I  am  sure,  and  that  is  that 
a  great  future  awaits  one  man :  the  man  who  is  lucky 
enough  to  be  loved  by  you.  Good-bye.  You  have 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  173 

placed  me  in  such  a  position  as  makes  it  inevitable 
for  me  to  take  the  rosiest  view  of  all  the  world." 

"  Even  of  the  man  whom  I  shall  love  ?    Well,  you 
are  an  optimist.     Good-bye." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

MR.  ERNEST  CLIFTON  had  a  good  deal  to  think 
about ;  but,  as  he  was  usually  in  this  condition,  he  did 
not  feel  greatly  inconvenienced.  He  was  well  aware 
of  the  fact  that  when  one  man  insists  on  doing  all  the 
thinking  for  a  large  and  important  organisation,  he 
cannot  expect  to  have  a  vacant  mind  for  many  hours 
together.  He  had,  however,  so  managed  matters  in 
connection  with  the  great  political  machine  of  which 
he  was  secretary  that  he  had  become  the  sole  Intelli- 
gence of  the  organisation.  He  was  not  only  the  man 
who  controlled  the  driving  power  of  the  engine,  he 
also  had  command  of  the  brakes ;  and  every  one  is 
aware  of  the  fact  that  to  know  when  to  slacken  speed 
and  when  to  stop  is  a  most  important  part  of  the 
duties  of  the  man  who  is  running  any  machine.  Any 
inferior  person  can  pitch  the  coal  into  the  furnace  to 
keep  up  the  steam,  but  it  requires  an  Intelligence  to 
know  when  to  shut  it  off. 

He  had  determined  from  the  outset  that  he  would 
not  allow  himself  to  be  hampered  by  the  presence  of 
another  thinking  man  on  the  foot  plate  of  his  engine ; 
it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  obtain  for  any 
political  organisation  a  president  and  a  committee 
utterly  devoid  of  intelligence,  and  Ernest  Clifton  re- 
solved that  though  he  might  be  forced  to  make  seek 
'74 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  175 

for  such  a  committee  among  the  most  notable  men  in 
the  Party,  he  would  secure  it  somehow. 

He  found  it  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  get  an 
ideal  President,  Vice-President,  Honorary  Secretary 
and  Committee.  They  were  all  men  whom  he  could 
implicitly  trust  to  abstain  from  thought  on  any  vexed 
question,  but  he  took  care  that  no  question  of  this 
type  remained  in  a  condition  of  suspense  :  he  himself 
supplied  the  thinking  power  necessary  for  its  solution. 

The  result  of  several  years'  adherence  to  this  sys- 
tem was  that  Ernest  Clifton,  without  a  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment, without  a  name  that  carried  weight  with  it  out- 
side his  own  Party,  had  become  a  Power  in  the 
political  world. 

It  was  rumoured  that  upon  one  occasion  he  had 
been  consulted  by  the  Prime  Minister  in  regard  to  a 
matter  involving  a  considerable  change  in  the  domes- 
tic policy  of  the  Government,  and  that  his  counsel 
had  been  accepted  although  it  differed  materially  from 
the  view  of  some  important  members  of  the  Cabinet. 

It  was  this  Ernest  Clifton  who,  after  dictating  to 
his  private  secretary  half  a  dozen  letters  of  a  more  or 
less  ambiguous  phraseology,  sat  with  a  letter  of  his 
own  in  front  of  him — a  letter  which  he  had  received 
that  morning — a  letter  which  added  in  no  inconsider- 
able degree  to  his  burden  of  thought.  The  letter  was 
from  Josephine  West  and  it  notified  to  him  the  fact 
that  the  writer  found  it  impossible  any  longer  to 
maintain  the  policy  of  secrecy  which  he  had  imposed 
upon  her. 


176  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  When  I  agreed  for  your  sake  to  keep  our  engage- 
ment a  secret,"  Josephine  wrote,  "  I  did  not  foresee 
the  difficulties  in  the  situation  which  that  secrecy  has 
already  created.  Daily  I  feel  myself  to  be  in  a  false 
position,  and  hourly  I  feel  humiliated  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  concerned  in  an  underhand  act.  I 
know  that  I  was  wrong  in  giving  you  my  promise  at 
first ;  there  was  really  no  reason  why  you  should  not 
have  gone  to  my  father  and  if  he  refused  his  consent 
we  should  be  placed  in  no  worse  position  than  that  of 
numbers  of  other  men  and  women  who  are  separated 
by  cruel  circumstances,  but  are  still  happy  relying  on 
each  other's  fidelity.  Surely  we  could  bear  up  by  the 
same  means,  against  a  much  greater  adversity  than  the 
refusal  of  my  father  to  give  his  consent  to  our  en- 
gagement being  made  public.  I  must  therefore  ask 
of  you,  my  dear  Ernest,  to  release  me  from  the  prom- 
ise which  I  made  to  you — to  release  me  nominally  is 
all  that  I  beg  of  you — until  my  father  has  given  his 
consent  to  our  engagement.  Of  course  I  need  hardly 
say  to  you  who  know  me  so  well,  that  your  releasing 
me  would  not  interfere  with  my  present  affection 
which  is  quite  unchanged  and  not  likely  to  change. 
But  I  must  be  released." 

This  was  the  part  of  the  letter  which  added  so  ma- 
terially to  his  burden  of  thought,  though  the  letter 
really  could  not  be  said  to  go  more  than  a  little  step 
in  advance  of  the  situation  created  by  the  writer  by 
her  interview  with  him  at  Ranelagh,  a  fortnight  ago. 

The   question   which   he   had   then   formulated    to 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  177 

himself  was  one  that  could  not  by  any  possibility  be 
regarded  as  flattering  to  that  assumption  of  constancy 
upon  which  she  now  laid  some  stress. 

"  Who  is  the  man  ?  "  was,  it  may  be  remembered 
the  question  to  the  solution  of  which  he  had  addressed 
himself;  and  now  he  was  not  deterred  by  the  para- 
graph in  the  letter  just  received  from  her — the  para- 
graph which  was  meant  to  give  him  assurance  of  the 
immobility  of  her  affections — from  once  again  asking 
himself  that  question : 

"  Who  is  the  man  ?  " 

He  had  been  unable  to  find  any  plausible  answer  to 
that  question  during  the  weeks  that  had  elapsed  since 
Mr.  Shirley's  dinner,  though  in  the  meantime  he  had 
met  Josephine  twice  and  upon  each  occasion  had 
shown  the  utmost  adroitness  in  the  enquiries  he  put 
to  her  quite  casually,  and  without  premeditation,  with 
a  view  to  approaching  a  step  nearer  to  the  solution  of 
the  question. 

He  could  not  hear  that  she  had  met  any  man  whom 
he  could  feel  justified  in  regarding  as  a  possible  rival ; 
but  in  spite  of  this  fact  he  could  not  bring  himself  to 
believe  that  her  sudden  appreciation  of  the  falseness 
of  her  position  was  due  to  a  sudden  access  of  sensi- 
tiveness. His  long  and  close  connection  with  a  po- 
litical association  had  made  him  take  a  cynical  view 
of  the  motives  of  men.  When  he  heard  at  any  time 
of  the  conscience  of  a  politician  being  greatly  per- 
turbed in  regard  to  any  question,  he  had  never  any 
difficulty  in  finding  out  exactly  what  that  particular 


i78  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

gentleman  wanted — whether  it  was  a  Knighthood,  a 
recognition  of  his  wife  at  a  Foreign  office  reception, 
or  a  chat  for  five  minutes  with  a  Cabinet  Minister  on 
the  Terrace  on  a  day  when  the  Terrace  is  crowded. 
He  flattered  himself  that  he  could  within  twenty-four 
hours  diagnose  the  most  obstinate  case  of  that  insidi- 
ous malady  Politician's  Conscience,  and  prescribe 
for  it  a  specific  that  never  failed  if  applied  according 
to  his  instructions. 

Thus  it  was  that  he  was  led  to  take  what  he  called 
a  practical  view  of  any  psychological  incident  that 
came  under  his  notice.  He  regarded  psychology  as 
rather  more  of  an  exact  science  than  meteorology.  It 
was  altogether  a  question  of  so  many  atmospheric 
pressures,  he  thought ;  even  the  force  of  spiritual 
cataclysms  could  be  calculated,  if  one  only  took  the 
trouble  to  use  one's  experience  as  a  scisometer. 

Thus  it  was  that  although  he  had  not.  yet  dis- 
covered the  identity  of  the  man  who,  in  his  opinion, 
had  caused  that  excess  of  sensitiveness  on  the  part  of 
Josephine,  he  was  as  certain  of  his  existence  as  the 
astronomer  was  of  the  planet  known  as  Uranus, 
through  observing  certain  aberrations  on  the  part  of 
the  planet  Saturn,  due  to  attraction. 

He  hoped  one  day  before  long  to  be  able  to  calcu- 
late the  position  of  the  attractive  but  unknown  man 
arid  to  be  able  to  see  him  without  the  aid  of  a  tele- 
scope. 

Meantime,  however,  he  knew  that  he  would  have 
to  answer  that  letter  which  lay  before  him,  and  for 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  179 

the  moment  he  scarcely  knew  how  it  should  be  re- 
plied to. 

While  he  was  giving  all  his  consideration  to  this 
question,  a  clerk  knocked  at  the  door  of  his  room  and 
entered  with  a  card,  bearing  the  name  of  Sir  Harcourt 
Mortimer,  the  Minister  for  the  Arbitration  Depart- 
ment. 

He  directed  the  visitor  to  be  shown  upstairs :  it  was 
no  new  thing  for  a  Cabinet  Minister  to  pay  a  visit  to 
the  Central  Offices  of  the  Great  Organisation,  and 
while  Sir  Harcourt  was  coming  up  crimson-carpeted 
stairs,  the  Secretary  slipped  the  letter  which  he  had 
been  reading  into  the  breast  pocket  of  his  coat,  and 
wondered  if  he  could  by  any  possibility  bring  the 
presence  of  the  Chief  to  his  Department  to  bear 
upon  the  Under-Secretary,  Mr.  Philip  West,  to  in- 
duce him  to  consent  to  his  daughter  marrying  so 
obscure,  but  powerful  a  man  as  the  Secretary  of  the 
Argus  Organisation. 

The  smile  that  came  over  his  face  as  the  fantastic 
idea  occurred  to  him  had  not  passed  away  before  the 
Minister  was  shaking  hands  with  him,  discussing  the 
possibility  of  a  thunderstorm  occurring  within  the 
next  twenty-four  hours. 

Mr.  Clifton  knew  perfectly  well  that  his  visitor 
had  not  come  to  him  solely  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
cussing electrical  phenomena ;  so  he  broke  off  sud- 
denly waiting  for — was  it  a  bolt  out  of  the  blue  that 
was  coming  ? 

"  I  want  to  get  your  opinion  on  a  few  matters  of 


180  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

importance  to  us,  Clifton,"  said  the  Minister  the 
moment  this  pause  was  made. 

Clifton  bowed. 

"  My  opinion,"  said  he,  "  my  opinion — well,  as  you 
know,  Sir  Harcourt,  it  amounts  to  nothing  more  than 
a  simple  equation.  If  a-\-b=c^  it  follows  that  c — b 
=a." 

"  That  is  just  what  makes  your  opinion  of  such 
practical  value,"  said  the  Minister.  "  We  wish  to 
know  from  you  in  this  case  the  value  of  x — x  repre- 
sents the  unknown  quantity  to  us — that  is  to  say,  the 
whim  of  a  constituency.  The  fact  is  that  Holford  is 
anxious  for  me  to  take  his  place  at  the  Annexation 
Department  while  he  goes  to  the  Exchequer — you 
know,  of  course,  that  Saxeby  is  resigning  on  account 
of  his  deafness." 

u  Yes,  on  account  of  his  deafness,"  said  Mr.  Clif- 
ton smiling  the  strictly  political  smile  of  Sir  Har- 
court. 

"  Yes ;  deafness  is  a  great  infirmity,"  sighed  the 
Minister — his  sigh  was  strictly  ministerial,  "and  his 
resignation  cannot  be  delayed  much  longer.  Now  we 
think  that  if  Eardley  is  returned  for  the  Arbroath 
Burghs  he  will  expect  a  place  in  the  Cabinet." 

"  He  did  very  well  in  the  last,  and  of  course  he 
would  be  in  the  present  Cabinet  if  he  had  not  lost  his 
seat  at  the  General  Election,"  remarked  Clifton. 

u  That  is  just  the  point.  Now,  do  you  think  you 
could  find  a  safe  seat  for  him  if  the  Arbroath  Burghs 
will  have  nothing  to  say  to  him  ?  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  181 

"  You  would  have  to  give  a  Baronetcy — perhaps  a 
Barony  to  the  man  who  resigns  in  his  favour." 

"  Of  course.  What  is  a  Baronetcy — or  a  Barony 
for  that  matter  ?  " 

"  I  think  it  might  be  managed,"  said  Clifton,  but 
not  without  a  pause — a  thoughtful  pause.  An  in- 
spiration came  to  him  immediately  after  his  visitor 
had  said  : 

"Ah,  you  think  so  ?     That  is  just  the  point." 

"  There  is  another  way  out  of  the  difficulty, 
though  it  may  not  have  occurred  to  you,"  continued 
Clifton  slowly. 

"  What  is  that  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  whether  I  should  suggest  it  or  not, 
Sir  Harcourt — but  it  may  have  occurred  to  you.  Mr. 
Philip  West  is  your  Under  Secretary.  He  has  al- 
ways been  a  useful  man.  I  know  that  in  the  country 
the  opinion  is  very  general  that  he  has  done  very 
well." 

"For  himself.?  "  asked  the  Minister  with  a  certain 
amount  of  dryness. 

The  Argus  Secretary  gave  a  very  fair  imitation  of 
an  Englishman's  imitation  of  a  Frenchman's  shrug. 

"  He  won  his  seat  for  us  and  I  doubt  if  there's  an- 
other man  in  England  who  could  have  won  it.  I'm 
certain  there's  not  another  who  could  hold  it,"  re- 
marked Clifton. 

"  He  is  not  very  popular  with  the  Cabinet,"  said 
Sir  Harcourt,  after  another  interval  of  thought. 

"  It   might  be   a  case   of  the   Cabinet  against  the 


i82  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

Country,  in  which  case  we  all  know  which  would 
have  to  give  in,"  said  Clifton.  "  I  don't  say  that  it 
is  so,  mind,  only — I  shall  have  to  think  the  whole 
thing  over,  Sir  Harcourt.  I  can  do  nothing  without 
facts  and  figures.  There  are  the  Arbroath  Burghs  to 
take  into  account.  I  shall  have  to  hunt  up  the  re- 
sults of  the  last  revision.  Eardley  might  be  able  to 
pull  through  after  all." 

"What,  do  you  mean  to  suggest  that  his  return  is  as 
doubtful  as  all  that  ?  We  took  it  for  granted  that  it 
was  a  pretty  safe  thing,"  said  the  Minister,  and  there 
was  a  note  of  alarm  in  his  voice. 

If  Clifton  had  not  recognised  this  note  he  would 
have  been  greatly  disappointed. 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Just  at  the  present  moment,"  said  he,  "it  is  diffi- 
cult to  feel  absolute  confidence  in  any  seat.  It  would 
be  unsafe  to  predict  the  return  of  Mr.  Girdlestone 
himself  were  he  to  hold  on  to  the  General  Election, 
and  he  is  a  local  man.  Oh,  the  Arbroath  Burghs 
have  always  been  a  bit  skittish." 

"  Then  perhaps  after  all  it  might  be  as  well  to  face 
the  possibility  of  West's  promotion  to  the  Cabinet," 
remarked  the  Minister.  "  After  all  he  stands  very 
close  to  it  at  present.  In  all  probability  we  Couldn't 
keep  him  out  very  much  longer." 

"  Of  course  Eardley  would  be  the  better  man," 
said  the  Secretary,  "  and  it  is  quite  likely  that  when  I 
get  more  information  regarding  Arbroath  I  shall  be 
able  to  make  your  mind  easy  about  him.  Still  I 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  183 

don't  think  that  West's  promotion  would  be  a  case 
of  the  worst  coming  to  the  worst." 

"  Oh,  no,  no ;  of  course  not,"  acquiesced  Sir 
Harcourt.  "  Oh,  not  by  any  means.  He  has  put 
himself  into  the  front  rank  by  his  treatment  of 
the  Gaspard  Mine  affair,  and,  as  you  say,  the  coun- 
try " 

"  Quite  so.  He  is  not  altogether  an  outsider," 
said  Clifton.  "  At  the  same  time  .  .  ." 

"  I  agree  with  you — yes,  I  fully  appreciate  the 
force  of  what  you  say,  Clifton,"  cried  Sir  Harcourt. 
"You  will  be  adding  to  your  innumerable  services  to 
the  party  if  you  collect  the  figures  bearing  upon  this 
little  matter  and  let  me  know  the  result.  Of  course, 
if  Eardley's  seat  were  sure  .  .  .  but  in  any  case 
we  have  an  excellent  man  to  fall  back  on." 

"I  think  I  understand  how  the  matter  rests,  and  I 
will  lose  no  time  in  collecting  my  figures,"  said  the 
Secretary,  while  the  Minister  straightened  out  his 
gloves  and  got  upon  his  feet. 

"  I  am  sure  you  have  a  complete  grasp  of  the  busi- 
ness," said  Sir  Harcourt.  "  Perhaps  in  a  week — 
there  is  no  immediate  hurry." 

"  Possibly  in  a  week  I  shall  have  enough  to  go 
upon." 

He  opened  the  door  for  his  visitor  and  Sir  Har- 
court thanked  him,  and  departed. 

"  It  was  an  inspiration,"  said  Clifton  below  his 
breath  when  he  was  alone.  He  walked  across  the 
thick  Turkey  carpet — offices  furnished  at  the  expense 


184  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

of  an  organisation  invariably  have  thick  Turkey 
carpets — and  stood  with  his  back  to  the  empty  grate. 

"An  inspiration,"  he  murmured  once  more. 

He  smiled  rather  grimly,  took  the  letter  out  of  his 
breast  pocket,  read  it  thoughtfully  and  smiled  again. 

Then  he  went  to  a  window  and  looked  out. 

The  day  was  gloomy  but  the  rain  was  still  keeping 
off.  He  tapped  the  barometer  that  hung  at  one  side 
of  the  window.  He  felt  certain  that  there  would  be 
thunder  before  night. 


CHAPTER  XX 

JOSEPHINE  had  at  one  time — and  it  was  not  so  very 
long  ago — been  accustomed  to  send  little  missives  to 
Mr.  Ernest  Clifton  giving  him  some  information  as 
to  the  entertainments  to  which  she  was  going  from 
week  to  week  so  that  their  accidental  meetings  were 
frequent.  A  good  deal  of  fortuitous  coming  together 
can  be  arranged  for  by  two  persons  of  ordinary  enter- 
prise. Since  she  had,  however,  become  sensitive  on 
the  subject  of  her  duty  to  her  parents,  and  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  her  attitude  in  regard  to  Mr. 
Clifton  was  not  one  that  any  girl  with  a  right  appre- 
ciation of  what  was  due  to  herself  as  well  as  to  her 
father  and  mother  would  adopt,  she  had  dropped  this 
illicit  correspondence — after  giving  him  due  notice — 
so  that  their  meetings  were  altogether  the  result  of 
chance. 

Still,  even  trusting  only  to  this  fickle  power,  they 
had  a  good  many  opportunities  of  exchanging  hand 
clasps  and  of  sitting  in  the  same  drawing-room. 
Since  that  momentous  dinner  at  Ranelagh,  however, 
neither  of  them  had  had  an  opportunity  of  reverting 
to  the  subject  of  her  conversation  when  alone  with 
him  on  the  terrace ;  hence  she  had  been  compelled  to 
write  to  him  that  letter  which  he  had  read  and  upon 
which  he  had  pondered  before  the  arrival  of  Sir  Har- 
185 


i86  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

court  Mortimer,  and  some  time  too  after  the  depart- 
ture  of  that  minister. 

(By  the  way,  that  thunderstorm  came  on  all  right 
before  the  evening.) 

Two  days  later,  he  was  fortunate  enough  (so  he 
said)  to  find  himself  in  a  group  of  which  she  was  a 
member,  in  the  grounds  of  an  historic  house  in  Ken- 
sington— not  South  Kensington  :  it  will  be  a  hundred 
years  or  more  before  there  are  historic  houses  in 
South  Kensington.  But  in  this  house  a  great  states- 
man had  once  lived — a  century  has  passed  since  there 
was  a  great  statesman  in  England — and  before  the 
birth  of  the  statesman,  a  great  Man  of  Letters  had,  by 
a  singular  mischance  of  marriage,  also  lived  in  the 
same  house — according  to  some  critics  a  hundred 
years  have  passed  since  there  was  a  great  Man  of 
Letters  in  England. 

Josephine  was  once  again  on  a  terrace — one  with 
an  Italian  balustrade  overlooking  a  lawn  and  the  little 
park  that  surrounded  the  historic  house — when  Clif- 
ton saw  her.  He  had  no  difficulty  getting  into  the 
group  of  dull  celebrities,  to  whom  she  had  been  in- 
troduced by  her  father — dull  peers  whose  names 
figured  largely  on  the  first  page — the  title  page  it 
should  properly  be  called — of  prospectuses ;  and 
deadly  dull  representatives  of  county  families  who  had 
neyer  done  anything  but  represent  the  county ;  a 
moderately  dull  judge  or  two,  an  immoderately  dull 
Indian  lieutenant-governor  (retired),  and  a  represent- 
ative of  literature.  (The  last  named  had  been  in- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  187 

vited  in  sympathy  with  the  traditions  of  the  house ; 
and  indeed  it  was  a  matter  of  tradition  that  this  liter- 
ary link  with  the  past  had  written  the  most  illiterate 
volume  of  verse  that  had  ever  remained  unread  by  the 
public.) 

Josephine  suffered  herself  to  be  detached  from  this 
fascinating  group  after  a  time,  but  resisted  the  temp- 
tations of  a  tent  with  moselle  cup  and  pate  de  foie  gras 
sandwiches  which  Ernest  held  before  her  dazzled  eyes. 

They  stood  together  at  the  top  of  the  steps  leading 
from  the  terrace  to  the  lawn,  and  they  talked,  not  of 
the  Great  Statesman  but  of  the  Great  Literary  Man. 
His  writings  have  the  boracic  quality  of  wit  to  keep 
them  ever  fresh. 

"To  think  that  he  stood  here,  just  where  we  are 
standing,"  said  Josephine.  u  To  think  that  he  looked 
at  those  very  trees.  He  went  to  live  on  the  Fulham 
Road  afterwards.  Why  did  he  not  remain  here,  I 
wonder  ?  " 

"You  see  his  wife  was  here,"  said  Mr.  Clifton  with 
the  air  of  the  one  who  explains. 

"  Ah — perhaps,"  laughed  Josephine.  "  I  came  upon 
a  letter  of  his  the  other  day  in  a  magazine — a  letter 
written  from  his  cottage  on  the  Fulham  Road  to  his 
stepson,  who  lived  here,  asking  him  to  come  to  hear 
the  nightingale  that  sung  every  night  in  one  of  the 
lanes." 

"  There  are  other  places  besides  '  the  lanes  off  the 
Fulham  Road  where  one  may  listen  to  the  song  of  the 
nightingale  nowadays,"  said  Mr.  Clifton. 


1 88  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  His  example  should  be  a  warning  to  a  man  not 
to  marry  beneath  him,"  remarked  Josephine. 

"  Yes,  it  was  rather  a  come  down  for  him,  wasn't 
it  ?  "  said  her  companion.  "  He  lived  in  a  garret  off 
the  Haymarket,  didn't  he  ? — and  his  wife  brought  him 
here." 

"  He  was  the  greatest  writer  of  his  time,  and  she 
was  only  a  Countess,"  said  Josephine. 

"  Quite  so.  But  they  lived  very  happily  apart,  so 
that  it  was  not  such  a  mesalliance  after  all,"  said 
Clifton.  "  I  suppose  it  was  one  of  Dr.  Johnson's 
customary  brutalities  to  say  that  the  man  died  from 
that  insidious  form  of  heredity  known  in  recent  diag- 
noses as  habitual  alcoholism." 

"  The  notion  is  horrid — quite  worthy  of  Dr.  John- 
son," said  Josephine,  making  a  move  as  if  to  rejoin 
another  sparkling  group. 

"  Don't  let  us  separate  for  a  minute  yet,"  said 
Clifton.  "  Though  I  admit  that  you  are  very  prop- 
erly cautious,  still  there  are  limits  :  we  have  not  been 
together,  so  that  we  could  talk,  for  some  weeks. 
Since  then  I  got  a  letter  from  you." 

"  I  have  been  very  unhappy,  Ernest,"  said  she,  gaz- 
ing into  the  distance  of  the  lovely  woodland. 

"  Not  more  unhappy  than  I  have  been,  my  dear- 
est," said  he.  "  Was  that  letter  of  yours  calculated 
to  allay  my  unhappiness,  do  you  think  ?  It  made  me 
doubly  unhappy  because  it  made  me  aware  of  your 
unhappiness." 

"  I   felt  that   I   could   not  avoid  writing  it,  Ernest. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  189 

It  would  have  been  impossible  for  me  to  remain  any 
longer  in  the  position  I  was  in  :  I  could  not  carry  on 
the  course  of  deception  into  which  you  led  me — no,  that 
is  going  too  far;  I  did  not  quite  mean  to  say  so  much." 

"  Then  it  was  only  your  own  kind  heart  that  re- 
strained you ;  for  you  might  have  meant  all  that  you 
said  and  a  great  deal  more.  I  admit  that  I  was  to 
blame  in  leading  you  to  make  me  the  promise  that 
has  caused  you  all  this  unhappiness." 

"  You  were  not  more  to  blame  than  I  was.  In  these 
matters  it  is  decreed  that  the  blame  is  not  to  be  laid  at 
the  door  of  one  person  only.  You  are  a  man  with  am- 
bition— you  could  not  be  expected — that  is  to  say,  the 
world  does  not  expect  that  you  should  feel  the  same 
way  as  a  woman  does  over  such  a  point  as  the  one 
which  I  dwelt  on.  A  secret  such  as  ours  was  is,  I 
know,  a  very  little  matter  in  the  life  of  such  a  man  as 
you  are.  You  are,  I  have  heard,  the  guardian  of  some 
of  the  most  important  secrets  in  the  world.  But  in 
any  case  a  man's  life  contains  innumerable  secrets  that 
are  never  revealed  until  he  is  dead." 

"  That  is  quite  true." 

"  A  man  with  a  career  to — to — cultivate — men 

cultivate  a  career  as  gardeners  do  their  roses " 

(They  were  standing  beside  a  rose  bed  now.) 

"  And  not  unfrequently  by  the  same  agents  of  fer- 
tilisation." 

"  Such  a  man  must  of  necessity  come  to  think  more 
of  the  great  issues  of  certain  incidents  than  of  the  in- 
cidents themselves." 


igo  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  That  is  perfectly  true."  He  shook  his  head  with 
a  mournfulness  that  was  precisely  in  keeping  with  the 
sadness  which  could  be  seen  in  his  expression.  "Too 
true — too  true  !  "  he  murmured.  "  Yes,  a  man  loses 
a  sense  of  perspective " 

"  Not  he,"  cried  Josephine.  "  A  man's  sense  of 
perspective  is  fairly  accurate.  It  is  a  woman  who  is 
wanting  in  this  respect.  We  have  so  accustomed 
ourselves  to  see  only  what  is  under  our  noses  that  we 
become  shortsighted  and  are  utterly  unable  to  per- 
ceive the  size  and  signficance  of  everything  at  a  dis- 
tance. That  is  how  it  comes  that  something  beneath 
our  eyes  seems  so  enormous  when  after  all,  it  is  quite 
insignificant.  Oh,  men  do  not  take  such  narrow — 
such  shortsighted  views  of  the  incidents  of  life." 

"  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that." 

"What,  would  you  say  that  any  man  takes  the 
same  narrow  view  of  an  incident  like  love  as  a  woman 
takes  of  it  ?  Oh,  no.  He  is  too  wise.  He  has  his 
career' in  the  world  to  think  about — to  shape;  it  is  a 
matter  of  impossibility  with  him  to  distort  out  of  all 
proportion  to  its  importance  that  incident  in  his  life 
.known  as  love.  That  is  how  it  comes,  I  know,  that 
you  think  I  am  very  foolish  to  lay  so  much  emphasis 
as  I  have  done  upon  so  simple  a  thing  as  my  giving 
you  my  promise  and  keeping  it  hidden  from  my  father 
and  mother.  You  think  that  it  is  making  a  fuss 
about  nothing.  You  cannot  understand  how  it  should 
be  the  means  of  making  me  suffer  tortures — tor- 
tures !  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  191 

"  On  the  contrary,"  said  the  man,  "  I  have  myself 
suffered  deeply  knowing  that  you  were  suffering  and 
recognising  as  I  do,  that  my  want  of  consideration  for 
you — my  selfishness — my  want  of  appreciation  for  the 
purest  soul  of  woman  that  ever  God  sent  on  earth, 
was  the  direct  cause  of  your  burden.  I  am  glad  that 
you  wrote  to  me  as  you  did,  and  I  rejoice  that  I  am 
not  selfish  enough  to  hold  you  to  the  promise  you 
made  to  me." 

She  turned  her  eyes  upon  him  and  looked  at  him  in 
more  than  surprise — in  actual  amazement. 

"You  mean  to  say  that  you — you  release  me  from 
my  promise,"  she  said. 

"  I  release  you  freely,"  he  replied.  "  Until  I  re- 
ceive your  father's  consent  to  an  engagement  I  will  not 
think  that  there  is  any  engagement  between  us — there 
may  be  an  understanding  between  us ;  but  there  is 
nothing  between  us  that  need  cause  you  uneasiness 
through  its  concealment  from  your  father  and  mother. 
When  the  day  comes  on  which  I  can  ask  your 
father's  consent  to  our  engagement  with  some  hope  of 
success,  I  shall  not  be  slow  to  go  to  him,  you  may  be 
sure;  but  till  then — you  are  free — you  need  not  feel 
any  self-reproach  on  the  score  of  concealing  anything  : 
there  is  nothing  to  conceal." 

She  was  dumb.  She  thought  that  she  would  have 
to  fight  for  her  freedom ;  but  lo,  he  had  knocked  the 
shackles  off  before  she  had  uttered  more  than  a 
petulant  complaint — she  had  no  need  to  make  any  im- 
passioned appeal  to  him ;  the  rhetoric  on  the  subject 


i92  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

of  Freedom  with  which  she  was  fully  acquainted  she 
had  no  chance  of  drawing  on.  He  had  set  her  free 
practically  of  his  own  free  will. 

She  was  too  surprised  to  be  able  to  do  more  than 
thank  him  in  the  baldest  way. 

"  I  am  sure  that  it  is  for  the  best,"  she  said,  "  I 
feel  happy  already — happy  feeling  that  a  great  burden 
has  been  lifted  from  me — that  I  need  no  longer  fear  to 
look  my  own  people  in  the  face.  Thank  you — thank 
you." 

There  was  gratitude  in  her  face  as  she  looked  at 
him.  She  could  scarcely  put  out  her  hand  to  him 
considering  the  number  of  people  who  were  about  the 
terrace,  or  she  would,  he  felt  assured,  have  done  so. 

But  there  was  undoubtedly  gratitude  in  her  face. 

He  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to  know  if  she 
was  grateful  by  reason  of  being  released  from  the 
pressing  care  of  the  secret  which  he  had  imposed  upon 
her  or  because  she  now  considered  herself  free  to  listen 
to  the  other  man,  the  man  whose  identity  he  had  not 
been  able  to  discover. 

She  herself  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to  know 
so  much. 

"  I  admit  that  I  was  in  error  from  the  very  first," 
said  he.  "  I  had  no  right  to  place  you  in  a  false  po- 
sition. I  did  not  know — but  I  had  no  excuse  for  not 
knowing — how  a  sensitive  creature  such  as  you  are 
could  not  but  feel  deeply — as  I  do  now — that  you 
were  not  one  who  needed  to  be  held  in  the  bondage 
of  a  promise.  I  know  now  how  that  the  real  bond 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  193 

that  exists  between  us  is  one  that  is  not  dependent  for 
its  endurance  upon  any  formal  promise — upon  any 
formal  engagement.  I  trust  you,  my  Josephine,  and 
I  know  that  you  can  trust  me." 

And  then  he  took  off  his  hat  to  Sir  Digby  and 
Lady  Swan,  and  there  was  something  in  his  action, 
Josephine  thought,  that  compelled  them  to  stop  and 
shake  hands  with  him  and  with  her  also,  for  she  was 
acquainted  with  the  great  ex-Solicitor  General  and  his 
wife. 

Curiously  enough  that  little  movement  on  his  part 
— a  movement  which  suggested  that  he  expected 
something  more  than  a  formal  recognition — imparted 
to  her  an  element  of  distrust.  But  it  was  not  until 
several  other  fellow-guests  had  come  up  and  joined 
her  group  separating  her  effectually  from  Ernest 
Clifton,  that  she  began  to  be  dimly  conscious  of  the 
truth — that  she  became  aware  of  the  fact  that  while 
he  had  been  ostentatiously  knocking  off  her  shackles 
of  iron  he  had  been  gently  imposing  on  her  shackles 
of  gold.  He  had  so  contrived,  by  the  adroitness  of 
his  words,  that  she  should  remain  bound  to  him  by  a 
tie  far  stronger  than  that  from  which  he  had  just  re- 
leased her. 

He  had  spoken  quite  truly  :  in  telling  her  that  he 
trusted  her  completely  he  had  put  upon  her  a  bondage 
from  which  she  would  not  try  to  escape.  He  had,  so 
to  speak,  torn  up  her  I  O  U  before  her  eyes  and  had 
thereby  turned  the  debt  for  which  he  held  security 
into  a  debt  of  honour. 


i94  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

She  felt  that  she  had  a  right  to  resent  this,  and 
her  feeling  was  that  of  a  person  who  has  been  got 
the  better  of  by  another  in  a  bargain,  and  who  has 
come  to  be  aware  of  this  fact.  She  resented  his 
cleverness  of  attitude  in  regard  to  her.  There  is  no 
love  strong  enough  to  survive  a  display  of  cleverness 
on  the  part  of  either  the  man  or  the  woman,  and  in 
her  irritation  of  the  moment  she  felt  very  bitterly  re- 
garding the  man.  "  Trickster  "  was  actually  the 
word  that  was  in  her  mind  at  the  moment.  It  never 
occurred  to  her  that  a  liberal  allowance  should  be 
made  for  any  man  who  has  attained  to  a  foremost 
position  as  a  political  organiser. 

She  should  have  known  that  to  judge  a  professional 
politician  by  the  ordinary  standards  that  one  instinc- 
tively employs  in  estimating  the  actions  of  people 
whom  one  meets  in  social  life  is  scarcely  fair.  She 
should  have  known  that  there  is  honour  among  poli- 
ticians just  as  there  is  honour — its  existence  has  been 
proverbial,  among  the  representatives  of  a  mode  of 
living  whose  affiliation  with  the  profession  of  politics 
has  not  yet  been  fully  recognised  in  England,  though 
it  is  in  America ;  but  the  standard  of  honour  among 
either  is  not  just  the  same  as  that  which  prevails  at  a 
public  school  or  even  in  a  public  house.  The  art  of 
jerrymandering  is  scarcely  one  that  would  be  practised 
by  the  Chevalier  Bayard ;  but  it  is  an  art  that  states- 
men have  studied  with  great  advantage  to  themselves, 
without  fear  and  without  reproach — except,  of  course, 
the  reproach  of  the  opposing  statesman. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  195 

Josephine  West  had  talked  a  good  deal  about  the 
point  of  view,  and  the  sense  of  perspective  and  other 
abstractions ;  and  yet  she  could  feel  irritated  because 
she  fancied  that  a  man  who  had  reduced  dissimulation 
to  a  science  had  not  been  quite  frank  with  her. 

She  was  still  suffering  from  this  irritation  when 
Amber  Severn  came  up  to  her  accompanied  by  Pierce 
Winwood. 

"  I  thought  that  as  I  would  see  you  here  I  need  not 
write  to  remind  you  that  you  are  to  come  to  us  at  The 
Weir  to-morrow  week,"  cried  Amber. 

"  Is  to-morrow  week  one  of  the  dates  that  we 
agreed  upon  last  month  ?  "  asked  Josephine. 

"  Yes ;  you  have  got  it  all  properly  noted  in  your 
book.  We  shall  be  a  quiet  little  party.  Mr.  Win- 
wood  is  coming." 

"  That  is  a  sufficient  guarantee,"  said  Josephine 
nodding  to  Mr.  Winwood.  They  had  reached  these 
confidential  terms,  having  met  frequently  since  they 
had  had  their  little  chat  together  in  the  rose-garden. 

"  My  ordinary  deportment  is  chilling  to  the  Hooli- 
gan element,"  said  Winwood.  "  Miss  Severn  men- 
tioned my  name  to  allay  your  suspicions." 

"  Our  only  excitement  is  to  be  the  visit  which  we 
are  to  pay  to  The  Gables,"  said  Amber.  "  Guy  has 
invited  us  to  drink  tea  on  his  lawn." 

"That  is  something  to  look  forward  to,"  said  Jo- 
sephine. 

"  I  hope  his  caterers  are  not  the  Casa  Maccaroni," 
said  Winwood. 


196  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

And  then  two  or  three  other  people  joined  their 
group,  and  Winwood  got  parted  from  Amber  by  the 
thoughtfulness  of  Lord  Lullworth  who,  it  seemed, 
was  an  emissary  from  his  mother,  the  Countess  of 
Castlethorpe.  The  great  lady  hoped,  according  to 
Lord  Lullworth,  that  Miss  Severn  would  consent  to 
be  presented  to  her,  and,  of  course,  Miss  Severn 
would  not  be  so  absurd  as  to  return  a  rude  answer  to 
a  request  which  represented  so  modest  an  aspiration. 

By  this  means  Lord  Lullworth  who  had  great  dif- 
ficulty in  finding  his  mother  had  for  a  companion  for 
quite  half  an  hour  of  this  lovely  afternoon,  Miss  Sev- 
ern, and  for  even  a  longer  space  of  time  Josephine 
West  was  by  the  side  of  Pierce  Winwood  beneath 
the  red  brick  walls  which  had  once  sheltered  a  great 
Man  of  Letters. 

They  talked  of  the  greal  Man  of  Letters  and  in- 
deed other  topics. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

AMBER  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would 
be  better  for  her  to  be  frank  with  her  friend  Josephine 
in  regard  to  the  personnel  of  her  fellow-guests  at  The 
Weir  for  the  Sunday.  A  month  had  passed  since 
Josephine  had  promised  to  keep  herself  disengaged 
for  this  particular  Sunday,  but  in  the  meantime  a  good 
many  things  had  happened,  the  most  important  being 
(as  she  fancied)- the  dinner  at  Ranelagh,  which  had 
given  a  certain  amount  of  prominence  to  Mr.  Win- 
wood  and  had  aroused  a  curious  prejudice  against  him 
in  the  estimation  of  Josephine.  It  was  thus,  she 
thought,  only  fair  to  Josephine  to  tell  her  that  Mr. 
Win  wood  had  also  promised  to  go  to  The  Weir  for 
the  Sunday,  so  that,  if  she  felt  that  another  day  spent 
in  his  company  would  be  insupportable,  she  might 
have  a  chance  of  concocting  some  excuse  for  remain- 
ing in  town. 

The  daughter  of  a  politician  of  eminence  should 
be  at  no  loss  for  a  plausible  excuse  to  extricate  herself 
from  the  consequences  of  a  promise  of  a  month's 
standing.  She  should  have  at  her  command — even 
though  her  father  did  not  actually  belong  to  the  Cab- 
inet— a  sufficiency  of  that  subtle  element  called  (by 
the  organs  of  the  Opposition)  tergiversation  to  tide 
her  over  a  shoal  place. 

It  was  this  thoughtfulness  on  the  part  of  Amber 
197 


198  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

that  impelled  her  to  let  Josephine  know  that  Mr. 
Winwood  also  had  promised  to  go  to  The  Weir,  and 
she  felt  greatly  relieved  to  find  that  her  friend  did  not 
make  any  attempt  to  draw  upon  her  imagination  for 
an  excuse  to  prevent  her  joining  the  party  at  Sir 
Creighton's  riverside  cottage. 

She  wondered  if  Josephine's  prejudice  was  abating 
already,  or  if  she  was  merely  showing  how  polite  she 
could  be. 

It  was  when  she  was  trying  to  recover  from  the 
startling  effects  of  the  return  of  Pierce  Winwood  to 
the  drawing-room  after  the  departure  of  Lord  Lull- 
worth,  that  her  father  came  to  her,  saying  something 
about  Pierce  Winwood. 

"  I  am  very  glad  you  asked  him  here,"  he  said. 
"Yes;  he  was  able  to  convince  me  of  his  identity." 

"  So  you  remembered  his  father's  name  after  all," 
said  Amber. 

"  Yes — oh,  yes.     I  remembered  his  father's  name." 

"  It  was  the  story  that  brought  it  back  to  you  ? " 

"  Yes — that  singular  story." 

"  You  were  able  to  tell  him  the  names  of  the 
people — the  names  that  he  was  so  anxious  to  find 
out  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  I  was  able  to — to  satisfy  him  on  this 
point.  By  the  way,  he  and  Josephine  had  some  chat 
together  in  the  garden — I  could  see  them  from  my 
window." 

Amber  shook  her  head  and  then  said : 

"  Poor  fellow  !  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  199 

"  Why  poor  fellow,  pray  ?  "  asked  her  father  rais- 
ing his  eyebrows. 

"  I  am  afraid  that  he — that  is — I'm  not  quite  sure 
that  I  should  tell  you  that " 

"  Let  me  know  what  it  is  you  are  in  doubt  about, 
and  I  will  give  you  my  best  advice  on  this  doubtful 
and  delicate  point,"  said  he. 

"  If  you  decide  that  I  shouldn't  have  told  you  will 
you  let  it  be  as  if  I  hadn't  told  you  ?  "  she  said,  clasp- 
ing her  hands  over  his  arm. 

"  Certainly  I  will,"  he  replied.  "  The  terms  are 
quite  honourable." 

"  Then  I  may  tell  you  that  an  hour  after  leaving 
this  room  he  returned." 

"  For  an  umbrella — that's  what  they  do  in  plays : 
they  always  come  back  for  the  umbrella  which,  with 
the  most  careful  inadvertency  they  have  left  behind 
them.  But  he  didn't  come  back  to  let  you  know 
that  owing  to  the  distractions  of  lunch,  he  had  for- 
gotten to  mention  that  he  loved  you  ?  " 

"  Worse — much  worse.  He  came  to  ask  me  if  I 
could  tell  him  if  Joe  had  given  her  promise  to  marry 
some  some." 

"  Heavens  above !  And  did  he  specify  the  some  one  ?" 

"  Oh,  dear,  no  ;  he  had  no  one — that  is  to  say,  he 
had  every  one  in  his  mind's  eye.  He  could  not 
understand  how  it  was  possible  that  so  sweet  and 
lovely  a  girl  should  have  reached  the  age  of  twenty- 
four  without  having  given  her  promise  to  marry  some 
man." 


200  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  It  does  seem  a  bit  queer,  doesn't  it  ?     Well  ?  " 

"  That's  all.  I  told  him,  of  course,  that  Joe  was 
quite  free." 

"  Of  course.  But  that  being  so,  where  does  your 
4  poor  fellow ! '  come  in.  Why  not  l  lucky  fel- 
low '  ?  " 

Amber  shook  her  head  more  sadly  than  she  had 
shaken  it  before. 

44  The  pity  of  it  !  the  pity  of  it ! "  she  murmured. 
"  Poor  Joe  !  " 

"Poor  yourself!"  laughed  Sir  Creighton.  "You 
cannot  be  ambitious  enough  to  wish  to  include  all  the 
world  in  your  pity.  Why  '  poor  Josephine  '  ?  " 

"  She  confessed  to  me  that  she  hated  him,"  said 
Amber  in  a  whisper — the  whisper  of  an  aspen — 
tremulous  rather  than  sibilant. 

"  What,  hated  him  ?  I  had  no  idea  that  she  cared 
so  much  as  that  for  him  already,"  said  her  father. 
"  Are  you  sure  that  she  confessed  to  hating  him  ?  " 

Amber's  hands  dropped  from  his  arm,  but  her  eyes 
did  not  drop  from  his  face. 

44  Do  you  mean — you  cannot  mean — that — that  all 
may  yet  be  well  ?  "  she  cried. 

44  My  dear  girl,"  said  he,  smiling  a  smile  which  he 
had  provisionally  patented  since  his  daughter  had 
made  it  a  practice  to  consult  him  on  curious  points  of 
psychology  and  diction  and  deportment.  "  My  dear 
daughter,  I  have,  as  you  well  know,  little  time  to  de- 
vote to  the  study  of  temperament  or  poetry  or  un- 
practical things  of  that  sort,  but  I  have  seen  enough 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  201 

in  the  course  of  a  busy  but  not  wholly  unobservant 
life,  to  convince  me  that  when  a  young  woman  goes 
so  far  as  to  confess  that  she  hates  any  particular  young 
man,  or  old  man,  for  that  matter — she  has  gone  very 
far  in  the  direction  of  saying  that  she  loves  that  par- 
ticular man.  I  don't  say  that  Josephine " 

"  She  doesn't.  She  doesn't — at  least — I  don't  be- 
lieve that  she  has  thought  about  him  one  way  or 
another.  She  was,  however,  quite  polite  to  him  to- 
day." 

"  That's  rather  a  bad  sign,  isn't  it  ?  When  a  girl 
is  polite  to  a  man  whom  she  hates,  she  makes  one 
feel  that  his  chances  with  her  are  reduced.  But  of 
one  thing  you  may  be  sure — yea,  of  two  things  you 
may  be  certain  ;  the  first  is  that  no  girl  hates  a  man 
of  whom  she  has  not  been  thinking  a  great  deal ; 
the  second  is  that  no  girl  hates  a  man  unless  she 
knows  that  he  loves  her." 

"  How  curious  !  How  very  curious !  You  are 
sure — quite  sure  ?  " 

"  There  are  variants,"  said  the  man  of  science. 
"  But  one  cannot  study  the  properties  of  the  positive 
and  negative  currents  of  electricity  for  forty  years 
without  learning  something  of  the  elementary  princi- 
ples of  attraction  and  repulsion.  The  air  was,  I 
think,  strongly  charged  with  electricity  when  the  first 
woman  was  born ;  and  that  being  so,  don't  you  think 
you  might  do  worse  than  ask  Winwood  and  Josephine 
to  join  us  at  The  Weir,  some  of  these  days  ?  " 

He  was  smoothing  her  hair  very  gently  :  the  action 


202  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

was  prettily  paternal  but  it  was  also  strictly  business- 
like ;  for  was  he  not  the  inventor  of  that  microelec- 
trometer  which  is  so  marvellously  sensitive  that  it  is 
capable  of  measuring  the  force  of  the  current  gener- 
ated by  the  stroking  of  a  cat.  He  had  experimented 
on  his  daughter  years  ago.  No  penalty  attached  to 
his  doing  so,  though  had  he  tried  his  electrometer  on 
the  cat  he  would  have  laid  himself  open  to  a  criminal 
prosecution. 

She  was  all  unconscious  of  the  escaping  ohms ;  she 
was  puzzling  out  the  hard  saying  that  had  come  from 
her  father.  She  was  trying  to  see  daylight  through 
the  obstructions  of  his  phrases  and  the  obscuration 
of  his  logic. 

She  shook  her  head — for  the  third  time — saying : 

"  I'm  in  a  bit  of  a  mist  just  now.  I  should  like  to 
think  it  all  out." 

"As  if  one  can  get  out  of  a  mist  through  much 
thinking,"  said  he.  "  Dearest  daughter  of  my  house 
and  heart,  take  my  advice  and  think  only  when  you 
cannot  help  thinking  ;  but  remember  that  woman  was 
not  made  to  think  but  to  act.  It  is  man,  foolish  man, 
who  is  so  badly  endowed  of  nature  that  he  is  com- 
pelled to  think  out  things.  The  woman  who  thinks 
is  about  as  womanly  as  the  pantomine  Old  Mother 
Hubbard.  Be  a  woman,  my  dear,  and  assert  your 
femininity  by  acting — yes,  acting  in  accordance  with 
no  principle  of  logic,  but  strictly  in  response  to  the 
prompting  of  your  instinct." 

He  kissed  her  and  looked  at  the  timepiece. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  203 

"  I'll  write  to  Mr.  Winwood,"  she  said  somewhat 
helplessly  and  hopelessly.  "Joe  long  ago  promised 
to  come  to  us  at  The  Weir  on  Saturday  week.  But 
I  think  I  must  tell  her  if  he  accepts  the  mater's  in- 
vitation." 

"  Oh,  certainly ;  that  is  the  least  you  can  do :  she 
was  so  polite  to  him  to-day,"  said  her  father  from 
the  door,  smiling  that  registered  smile  of  his  and  mak- 
ing his  escape  before  she  could  put  the  question  to 
him  which  that  smile  invariably  prompted. 

She  felt  that  it  was  all  very  well  for  him  to  advise 
her  not  to  think  out  any  matter;  it  was  not  so  easy, 
however,  for  her  to  refrain  from  thinking,  seeing  that 
he  had  led  her  into  the  perilous  paths  of  thought  long 
ago.  He  had  taught  her  the  art  of  thinking  long  ago, 
and  yet  now  he  could  airily  assure  her  that  she  was 
very  foolish  and — what  was  much  the  same  thing — 
very  unwomanly  to  try  to  think  herself  out  of  a  dif- 
ficult place. 

Well,  that  showed  that  he  was  a  man  anyway — a 
man  as  illogical  as  the  most  sapient  savant  can  be, 
and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal. 

The  suggestions  made  to  her  by  her  father  had, 
however,  considerably  widened  the  horizon  of  her 
consideration,  so  to  speak.  That  is  to  say,  she  had 
only  been  thinking  how  admirably  Josephine  had  suc- 
ceeded in  hiding  beneath  a  mask  of  politeness  her  ill- 
founded  prejudice  against  Mr.  Winwood ;  whereas 
now  she  was  led  to  consider  the  possibility  of  that 
mask  of  hers  concealing  a  good  deal  more.  She  had 


204  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

been  pitying,  first,  Mr.  Winwood  for  having  been  so 
impulsive  as  to  fall  in  love  with  Josephine ;  and, 
secondly,  Josephine  for  having  been  so  impulsive  as 
to  conceive  a  prejudice  that  might  interfere  with  her 
happiness  in  the  future. 

But  now,  it  seemed  that  she  need  not  have  pitied 
either  of  them — if  her  father's  suggestions  were 
worth  anything. 

And  then  she  had  given  an  exclamation  of  derision 
and  had  begun  to  think  of  other  matters.  She  meant 
this  exclamation  to  bear  upon  the  wisdom  of  her 
father  veiled  (as  so  much  wisdom  may  be  if  one  is 
only  wise)  in  a  fine  lacework  of  phrases.  Her 
father's  Valenciennes  phrases  were  much  admired : 
they  had  a  charming  and  delicate  pattern  of  their  own 
which  perhaps  some  people  admired  more  than  the 
wisdom  whose  features  they  effectually  concealed, 
and  the  design  of  his  Point  de  Venise  was  so  strik- 
ing that  no  one  was  in  the  least  curious  as  to  whether 
it  concealed  any  thought  or  not. 

Thus  it  was  that  Sir  Creighton's  daughter  found  it 
necessary  to  make  use  of  a  serious  exclamation  when 
she  found  that  when  she  had  looked  for  wisdom  from 
her  father  he  had  given  her  a  phrase — the  lace  cere- 
ment of  wisdom. 

And  then  she  gave  a  more  emphatic  exclamation  when 
she  reflected  upon  the  possibility  of  Josephine's  polite 
demeanour  being  as  opaque  as  her  father's  paradoxes. 
She  had  believed  that  the  embroidered  domino  of 
politeness — that  makes  a  variation  from  the  rather 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  205 

flimsy  trope  of  the  lace — concealed  within  its  folds 
only  her  friend's  dislike  for  the  presence  of  Mr. 
Winwood ;  but  now  it  had  been  suggested  to  her  that 
there  was  a  good  deal  below  the  billowy  surface  of 
the  ornamented  fabric  that  she  had  never  suspected 
to  exist  there. 

She  said  "  Psha  !  "  also  "  Phu  !  "  and  "  Phi,"  and 
gave  vent  to  all  those  delicately  modulated  breathings 
with  long-drawn  sibilants  which  moments  of  staccato 
derision  suggest  to  those  young  women  who  have  not 
trained  themselves  to  the  more  robust  verbiage  of 
condemnation — sounds  like  the  stamping  of  Alpine 
heels  upon  a  solid  pavement. 

It  was  of  course  a  great  relief  to  the  girl  to  give 
way  to  those  half  tones  of  vituperation — those  dainty 
slipper-taps  as  it  were,  of  impatience.  But  after  all 
the  real  relief  that  she  experienced  was  in  diverting 
her  thoughts  from  the  possible  dissimulation  of  her 
father  and  her  friend  to  the  plain  and  simple  language 
made  use  of  by  Lord  Lullworth  in  her  presence. 

Lord  Lullworth  was,  of  course,  a  fellow  with  no 
pretensions  to  brain-power — with  no  delicate  appre- 
ciation of  the  subtleties  of  language ;  but  beyond  a 
shadow  of  doubt  Amber  felt  the  greatest  relief  to  her 
mind  through  reflecting  upon  his  extraordinary  frank- 
ness. There  at  any  rate  was  a  man  who  knew  ex- 
actly what  he  meant  and  who  was  able  to  communicate 
to  another  person  exactly  what  he  meant.  To  be  sure 
what  he  did  mean  was  something  too  absurd  to  be 
entertained  for  a  moment ;  still  it  had  been  clearly 


206  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

defined  and — yes,  it  was  not  without  picturesqueness 
and — yes,  it  was  undeniably  a  relief  to  think  about  him. 

Only  an  hour  had  passed  since  she  had  been  lying 
back  among  her  cushions,  reflecting,  with  the  help  of 
the  Florentine  mirror,  upon  the  situation  of  the  mo- 
ment. She  had  at  that  time  been  led,  out  of  a  feeling 
that  Lord  Lullworth  should  have  fair  play,  to  think 
of  him  in  active  and  brutal  contest  with  the  other 
young  men  who  had  been  drinking  tea  with  her;  but 
now  she  found  that,  even  judged  from  a  lofty  stand- 
point, he  was  susceptible  of  being  thought  about  with 
positive  pleasure — well,  if  not  absolute  pleasure  cer- 
tainly with  satisfaction,  the  satisfaction  which  comes 
from  a  sense  of  relief. 

And  then  she  found  that  really  his  frankness  had 
not  been  unpicturesque  as  a  pose.  She  began  to  feel 
that  a  great  misapprehension  existed  in  the  minds  of 
most  people  in  regard  to  frankness.  The  impression 
undoubtedly  did  prevail  that  frankness  was  only  can- 
dour in  hob-nailed  boots.  She  knew  that  the  general 
feeling  is  that  if  candour  is  insolence  in  a  white  sur- 
plice, frankness  is  rudeness  in  rags.  That  misappre- 
hension was  allowed  to  exist  simply  because  so  many 
people  who  were  really  clever,  never  found  that  it 
suited  them  to  be  frank.  They  had  given  all  their 
attention  to  the  art  of  not  being  frank,  just  as  some 
women  give  up  all  their  time  to  their  dress,  neglect- 
ing their  bodies,  to  say  nothing  of  their  souls,  in  order 
that  they  may  appear  well-dressed.  She  felt  con- 
vinced that  if  a  really  clever  man  were  to  study  frank- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  207 

ness  as  an  art  he  might  be  able  to  make  a  good  thing 
out  of  it.  At  any  rate  it  would  be  a  novelty. 

Yes,  Lord  Lullworth  had  certainly  struck  out  a 
path  for  himself,  and  had  made  some  progress — quite 
enough  to  impress  her,  and  to  cause  her  some  re- 
morse when  she  reflected  upon  her  having  thought  of 
him  as  a  fool. 

Lord  Lullworth  undoubtedly  had  made  an  appreci- 
able amount  of  progress  when  he  had  impelled  the 
girl  who  had  first  thought  of  him  only  as  a  young 
fool,  to  give  herself  over  to  the  consideration  of  his 
position  as  an  athlete,  then  of  his  position  as  a  reliev- 
ing influence  coming  after  the  distractions  of  intellec- 
tuality ;  and,  finally,  of  his  position  as  an  original 
thinker — the  pioneer  of  a  cult  which  might  yet  be- 
come a  power  in  a  society  where  dissimulation  flour- 
ishes. 

And  what  marked  the  extent  of  his  progress  the 
more  vividly  was  the  fact  that  the  result  of  her  con- 
sideration of  the  young  man  from  every  successive 
standpoint  only  strengthened  his  place  in  her  esteem. 

Then  her  mother  wrote  the  invitation  to  Mr.  Win- 
wood  for  Saturday  week  and  he  accepted  it  in  due 
course  ;  and  it  was  on  the  Wednesday  next  before 
that  Saturday  that  Amber  met  Josephine  on  the  ter- 
race of  the  great  historic  house  in  Kensington,  and 
reminded  her  that  she  had  engaged  herself  to  go  up 
the  river  to  The  Weir  from  Saturday  to  Monday. 

That  was  not  the  only  engagement  of  which  Jo- 
sephine was  conscious. 


208  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

Still  she  had  been  able  to  shoot  a  dart  of  pretty 
badinage  with  a  barb  touched  with  sugar  instead  of 
gall,  in  the  direction  of  Mr.  Winwood  at  that  moment ; 
and  thus  Amber  had  gone  home  more  amazed  than 
ever. 

But  not  before  she  had  been  charmed  by  her  gra- 
cious reception  at  the  hands  of  the  Countess  of  Cas- 
tlethorpe. 

No  young  man  with  a  mother  so  perfectly  charm- 
ing could  be  unworthy  of  consideration,  she  felt. 

And  thus  Lord  Lullworth  took  another  stride  along 
the  perilious  path  upon  which  he  had  set  his  feet. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

EVEN  when  he  was  living  for  two  days  in  the  retire- 
ment of  his  cottage  on  the  bank  of  the  River  Thames, 
Sir  Creighton  Severn  was  too  busy  a  man  to  find  time 
to  join  the  little  company  who  set  out  in  his  launch 
on  the  Sunday  to  pay  the  visit  which  his  daughter  had 
promised  to  the  new  proprietor  of  The  Gables.  He 
was  not  so  utterly  overwhelmed  with  business,  how- 
ever, but  that  he  could  look  forward  to  two  hours  of 
solitude  and  slumber  during  their  absence.  He  cal- 
culated, without  the  aid  of  logarithms,  that  the  little 
company  would  be  absent  for  two  hours,  and  he  pro- 
posed spending  twenty  minutes  of  this  space  in  the 
enjoyment  of  his  solitary  cigar  on  the  lawn  and  the 
remaining  hour  and  forty  minutes  on  one  of  the  long 
cane  chairs  in  a  bower  overclustered  by  clematis,  blue 
and  white,  and  hidden  away  from  the  intrusive  en- 
quiries of  impressionable  flies  and  impossible  visitors. 

He  had  no  doubt  that  a  visit  to  The  Gables  would 
have  been  very  interesting — as  a  matter  of  fact  he 
found  most  things  in  the  world  very  interesting — but, 
as  he  remarked  with  a  sigh  that  fully  expressed  his 
gratification  at  the  thought,  a  busy  man  must  make 
up  his  mind  to  forego  a  good  many  of  those  enjoy- 
ments which  he  most  detested. 

The  utmost  enjoyment  that  he  could  allow  himself 
in  connection  with  this  expedition  was  seeing  the  de- 
209 


210  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

parture  of  the  electric  launch  from  the  little  staging 
at  the  water's  edge.  But  this  enjoyment  though  only 
lasting  a  few  minutes,  was  intense  while  it  did  last. 
His  wife  understood  his  feelings  thoroughly.  It  was 
not  often  that  she  was  able  when  up  the  river  to  with- 
draw her  guests  in  so  solid  a  body,  leaving  Sir  Creigh- 
ton  to  the  solitude  of  his  bower. 

Her  guests  pitied  him.  Some  of  the  more  sapient 
ones  shook  their  heads  and  talked  about  burning  the 
candle  at  both  ends. 

She  only  smiled  in  response  and  said  that  it  did  not 
matter  when  the  candle  was  an  electric  one. 

And  so  the  launch  made  its  noiseless  way  towards 
the  lock  at  Hurley. 

The  cottage  known  as  The  Weir  was  quite  a  small 
place — it  could  only  accommodate  six  or  seven  visi- 
tors at  once  in  addition  to  Sir  Creighton's  family,  and 
the  usual  maids  which  the  visitors  brought  with  them  ; 
it  was  just  the  snug  little  nook  that  would  suit  any 
one  who  did  not  want  to  keep  more  than  two  garden- 
ers and  half  a  dozen  servants.  The  woods  of  Clieve- 
don  were  behind  it,  and  the  waters  of  the  weir  at 
Marlow  whispered  a  perpetual  "  Hush  "  in  the  ears 
of  all  the  household.  Sometimes,  however,  the  sound 
was  sufficiently  loud  to  drown  the  silly  bleatings  of 
the  phonographs  on  the  excursion  steamers  on  the 
other  side. 

The  fellow-guests  of  Josephine  and  Pierce  on  this 
particular  Sunday  were  only  two — a  man  and  his 
wife  who  were  entering  on  the  third  month  of  mar- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  211 

ried  life  and  living  as  if  they  were  utterly  regardless 
of  the  likelihood  that  they  had  forty  years  or  so  ahead 
of  them.  They  sat  far  astern,  not  exactly  side  by 
side,  but  within  easy  reach  of  each  other's  hands. 
They  thought  it  well  to  be  prepared  for  any  emer- 
gency. And  they  were. 

The  Gables  was  scarcely  a  mile  beyond  Hurley. 
It  had  now  and  again  peeped  into  the  pages  of  Eng- 
lish history  during  the  two  hundred  years  of  its  exist- 
ence. It  was  only  because  it  had  not  let  very  readily 
since  the  death  of  its  late  owner  that  the  agents  had 
thought  it  advisable  to  apply  the  Nell  Gwyn  myth  to 
it.  The  imagination  of  the  house  agent  is  bounded 
on  every  side  by  Nell  Gwyn.  He  has  not  the  least 
notion  who  Nell  Gwyn  was  and  he  doesn't  greatly 
care ;  but  he  knows  that  as  a  jog  to  the  dilatory  pur- 
chaser there  is  no  name  so  potent  in  a  catalogue, 
whether  the  "  item "  refers  to  a  public-house  or  a 
rectory. 

Nell  Gwyn  had  been  dead  for  several  years  before 
The  Gables  was  built.  It  was  quite  another  actress 
who  had  found  it  a  convenient  place  of  rest  for  a 
season,  but  even  in  respect  of  the  date  of  her  resi- 
dence beneath  its  roof  some  doubt  exists ;  for  at  the 
very  period  assigned  to  her  occupancy  of  the  house,  it 
is  known  that  it  was  in  the  possession  of  a  Royal 
Personage,  which,  of  course,  proves  that  a  confusing 
error  has  crept  into  the  dates. 

But  it  is  certain  that  an  historic  duel  once  took 
place  on  the  lawn — a  duel  in  which  a  distinguished 


212  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

nobleman  ran  his  dearest  friend  through  the  vitals, 
and  subsequently  was  himself  stabbed  by  the  husband 
of  the  lady  with  whom  his  former  antagonist  was  in  love. 

The  duel  took  place  with  swords  on  the  lawn ;  but 
the  successive  owners  of  the  house  have  pointed  out 
for  generations  the  marks  of  the  bullet  on  the  painted 
wainscot  of  one  of  the  drawing-rooms ;  and  the  ma- 
hogany Hepplewhite  chair  a  portion  of  the  carving  of 
which  was  injured  by  the  same  missile.  No  one  has 
yet  ventured  to  explain  how  it  was  that  the  bullet  in 
a  duel  fought  with  swords  killed  a  man  who  was  run 
through  the  body  and  then  injured  the  carving  of  a 
chair  made  of  a  wood  that  was  not  introduced  into 
England  until  forty  years  later,  and  by  an  artist  who 
was  not  born  at  the  time. 

Still  there  are  the  bullet  marks  and  they  were 
pointed  out  with  pride  by  the  new  owner  of  the  house  to 
his  guests  who  had  joined  his  house  party  this  evening. 

And  the  girls,  who  knew  all  about  the  house, 
laughed  quite  pleasantly,  and  the  young  man  from 
Australia  said  that  servants  were  very  careless,  which 
was  an  absurd  remark  to  make  when  talking  about 
historic  deeds  and  the  eccentricities  of  bullets. 

Lady  Severn  said  that  the  room  wanted  badly  to 
be  dusted,  and  this  was  quite  true,  as  every  member 
of  the  house-party- — they  were  three  in  number: 
namely,  Galmyn,  Bateman  and  another — was  ready 
to  testify. 

The  historic  house  was  not  seen  to  the  greatest 
advantage  at  that  time;  but  so  far  as  one  could 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  213 

gather,  the  pride  of  the  new  owner  in  possessing  it, 
was  quite  as  great  as  if  the  place  were  habitable.  It 
was  far  from  habitable,  a  casual  observer  might  have 
been  led  to  believe.  After  crossing  the  high  grass  on 
the  lawn — the  proprietor  explained  apologetically  that 
he  had  been  offered  fifteen  shillings  for  the  hay  crop 
but  he  meant  to  hold  out  for  a  pound — the  visitors 
skirted  the  enormously  overgrown  shrubs  and  the 
undipped  yew  hedges,  until  they  found  themselves 
stumbling  over  the  hillocks  of  what  had  once  been  a 
rose-garden,  now  given  over  to  the  riotous  luxuriance 
of  the  flaming  dandelion  and  the  tangled  masses  of 
the  blue  periwinkle,  and  the  persistent  nasturtium. 
The  whole  place  resembled  nothing  so  closely  as  a 
neglected  graveyard. 

Guy  Overton  and  his  house-party  trooped  out  to 
meet  them,  from  the  big  entrance-hall ;  and  it  was 
plain  that  the  little  party  had  been  playing  billiards, 
for  one  of  them  appeared  in  the  porch  with  a  cue  still 
in  his  hand,  and  they  all  seemed  warm  and  dusty, 
having  hastily  struggled  back  into  their  coats,  as  gar- 
den snails  retire  to  their  shells  when  surprised. 

"  Is  it  possible  that  you  have  been  playing  billiards 
indoors  such  a  lovely  afternoon  as  this  ?  "  cried  Amber 
in  grave  surprise. 

"  Oh,  no ;  not  billiards,  only  pool,  "  said  Guy. 

"You  should  be  ashamed  of  yourselves,"  said 
Amber. 

"  How  could  they  do  it  when  so  charming  a  garden 
is  smiling  at  them  here  ? "  asked  Pierce. 


2i4  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  Well,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  we  have  had  only  a 
poor  kind  of  game,"  said  Guy,  with  an  exculpatory 
inflection.  "  In  fact,  I  don't  think  it  could  be  called 
a  game  at  all." 

"  There  is  the  less  excuse  for  you  then,  spending 
your  time  over  it,"  said  Amber. 

"  When  all  nature  calls  to  you  rapturously  from 
the  cemetery  outside,"  added  Pierce. 

"  Oh,  that's  all  my  aunt ! "  cried  Guy  impatient  of 
sarcasm.  "  The  garden  is  a  bit  depressing  just  now, 
but  sooner  than  take  fifteen  bob  for  the  hay  crop,  I'd 
give  it  away." 

"That  would  be  an  extreme  measure  indeed,"  said 
Pierce.  "  Take  my  advice,  Guy  ;  let  it  continue  in- 
creasing in  luxuriance  until  the  winter  and  then  sell  it 
when  the  hay  is  getting  scarce." 

"  Welcome  to  The  Gables  !  "  cried  Guy  hospitably 
as  the  party  passed  through  the  porch  into  the  hall. 
"  Welcome  all !  I  hope  this  may  be  the  first  of 
many  pleasant  visits  to  my  humble  home." 

"  How  nicely  said,"  cried  Lady  Severn.  "  I  am 
sure  that  we  all  share  your  kind  hopes,  Mr.  Over- 
ton." 

The  hall  was  a  spacious  apartment  with  a  trans- 
parent dome  roof  and  mullioned  windows.  Here  and 
there  on  the  walls  hung  trophies  of  the  chase,  done  in 
plaster  of  Paris,  beautifully  tinted  (an  idea  due  to  the 
house  agent)  and  some  excellent  specimens  of  drapers' 
Japanese.  The  floor  was  beautifully  inlaid  as  one 
could  see  where  the  borders  remained  free  from  the 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  215 

earthy  layer  that  had  been  transferred  from  the  garden 
by  the  boots  of  (it  seemed)  half  a  century. 

Cobwebs  hung  from  the  beams  of  the  roof  like  the 
tattered  regimental  colours  in  a  church,  and  here  and 
there  a  piece  of  plaster  had  disappeared  from  above 
the  panels  of  the  walls.  The  remaining  breadths  of 
plaster  bore  countless  round  marks  on  its  surface,  sug- 
gesting that  some  man  had  designed  a  new  and  cu- 
rious scheme  of  decoration,  but  had  failed  to  realise  his 
aims. 

It  was  while  Josephine  and  Pierce  were  examining 
these  singular  impressions  on  the  wall  that  Guy  ex- 
plained their  origin. 

"  The  fact  is,"  he  said,  "  we  played  a  billiard  or  two 
last  night,  and  as  the  tables  hadn't  been  used  for  five 
or  six  years,  there  was  no  chalk,  but  Galmyn,  not  to 
be  beat,  hit  upon  the  notion  of  rubbing  the  tips  of  our 
cues  against  the  plaster  of  the  walls.  The  idea 
worked  remarkably  well." 

'  "  It  was  worthy  of  the  imagination  of  a  poet,"  said 
Pierce,  feeling  the  cushions  of  the  table  and  laughing. 
"  You  must  have  had  a  joyous  time  over  this  table," 
he  added.  "  The  cushions  are  clearly  made  of  chilled 
steel." 

"  They  are  a  bit  hard,  aren't  they  ?  "  said  Guy. 
"  Yes,  we  found  that  they  hadn't  much  spring  left  in 
them." 

"  Spring  ?  "  cried  Mr.  Galmyn.  "  Spring  ?  No, 
there's  more  that  suggests  winter  than  spring  about 
them." 


216  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  They'll  be  all  right  when  they  are  played  on  for 
some  time,"  said  Guy. 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  in  a  year  or  two  they'll  be  like  butter," 
said  Pierce  encouragingly.  "  Your  light  wasn't  partic- 
ularly good  I  should  say  ?  " 

He  pointed  to  a  splash  of  wax  about  the  size  of  a 
crown  piece  on  the  edge  of  one  of  the  pockets. 

"  That  chap  is  a  regular  Sherlock  Holmes,"  cried 
Guy.  "  He  has  found  out  that  we  played  by  the 
light  of  candles  last  night." 

On  the  shelf  of  the  mantelpiece  stood  a  pair  of  sil- 
ver candelabra  with  remnants  of  candle  still  in  the 
sockets,  but  a  good  bit  out  of  the  upright.  Splashes 
of  wax  decorated  the  path  from  the  billiard-table  to 
the  fireplace,  suggesting  the  white  stones  alongside  a 
carriage  drive. 

"  Only  one  cue  had  a  tip,"  said  Guy.  "  That 
made  playing  a  bit  tiresome  :  you  see  we  had  to  pass 
it  on  for  every  stroke.  We  had  best  go  on  to  the 
drawing-room.  The  ceiling  is  said  to  have  been 
painted  by  Angelica  Kauffmann — whoever  she  was." 

"  I  never  saw  a  painted  ceiling  that  poor  Miss  An- 
gel hadn't  something  to  say  to,"  whispered  Josephine 
as  the  party  trooped  through  the  open  door. 

It  was  as  Lady  Severn  had  said  :  the  drawing-room 
stood  sadly  in  need  of  dusting. 

So,  for  that  matter,  did  every  other  room,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  stairs  which  were  carpetless.  The 
house  was  not  quite  a  wreck  ;  but  one  felt  oneself  in- 
stinctively quoting  lines  from  Tennyson's  "  Mariana  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  217 

as  one  stood — it  was  scarcely  safe  to  sit — in  any  of 
the  rooms.  There  were  bald  patches  upon  some  of 
the  walls  that  had  some  time — long  ago — been 
painted;  but  as  a  sort  of  compensation  for  this  defi- 
ciency, as  a  member  of  the  party  remarked  when  it 
was  pointed  out  to  him  there  were  several  patches  on 
the  wall  that  were  not  bald  but  quite  the  contrary ;  for 
indeed  the  mildew  had  been  at  work  increasing  the 
forlorn  appearance  of  the  place. 

But  the  new  proprietor  was  very  proud  of  every- 
thing— of  the  patches  on  the  wall  that  marked  where 
the  plaster  had  become  dislodged — of  the  hirsute 
patches  that  had  been  subject  to  the  damp — of  the 
bullet  marks  that  he  considered  the  visible  signs  of  the 
duel  fought  with  swords — nay,  even  of  the  rat  that 
went  scurrying  across  a  room  which  he  called  the 
library,  the  moment  the  door  was  opened.  Oh,  there 
were  plenty  of  rats,  he  declared — some  fine  fat 
healthy  animals ;  he  talked  of  them  as  though  they 
were  part  of  the  live  stock  of  the  estate. 

And  in  the  drawing-room,  after  a  depressing  ramble 
through  the  dreary  house,  tea  was  served  by  a  couple 
of  elderly  women  (local)  and  it  was  certainly  not  de- 
ficient in  strength.  Neither  was  the  cake  (local)  nor 
the  china.  Young  Mr.  Overton  was  already  mak- 
ing a  heroic  attempt  to  introduce  a  scheme  of  economy 
that  should  tend  to  lessen  the  dead  weight  of  the  ex- 
pense to  which  he  had  been  put  in  purchasing  the 
historic  house. 

Some  members  of  the  party  wished  that  he  had  gone 


218  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

a  little  further  in  the  same  direction  and  had  refrained 
from  forcing  his  recherche  entertainment  upon  them. 
They  swallowed  a  portion  of  the  black  tea,  however, 
and  congratulating  him  upon  the  appearance  of  every- 
thing— tor  any  one  who  was  fond  of  developing  a  prop- 
erty, as  he  assured  them  he  was,  the  state  of  the 
house  and  grounds  left  nothing  to  be  desired — won- 
dered secretly  why  he  should  have  asked  them  to  visit 
such  a  scene  of  desolation. 

If  Amber  was  among  those  who  marvelled  what  his 
motive  could  be,  her  doubts  were  dispelled  when  she 
found  herself  alone  with  him  at  one  of  the  drawing- 
room  windows  :  the  other  members  of  the  party  had 
made  their  escape  to  the  field  of  grass  called  by  a  dar- 
ing figure  of  speech,  a  lawn ;  but  she  had  allowed 
herself  to  be  persuaded  to  sample,  so  to  speak,  a  view 
from  a  side  window.  She  admitted  that  the  silver  of 
the  river  gleaming  between  the  yew  hedges  was  very 
effective,  and  felt  convinced  that  it  would  be  im- 
proved by  a  judicious  trimming  of  the  shrubs. 

"  And  you  like  the  old  place  ?  "  said  he.  "  It  has 
surprised  you,  hasn't  it  ?  " 

"  Surprised  me  ? — well, — oh,  yes,  it  certainly  sur- 
prised me,"  she  replied.  "  You  are  looking  forward 
to  a  delightful  time  with  it,  are  you  not  ?  I  suppose 
it  wouldn't  have  had  the  same  attraction  for  you  if  it 
had  been  in  any  better  condition  ?  " 

"  Amber,"  he  said  in  a  whisper  which  had  some- 
thing of  shyness  lingering  in  its  tremulous  emotion. 
"  Amber,  I  lay  it  all  at  your  feet." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  219 

She  allowed  him  to  catch  her  hand — she  was-  too 
puzzled  to  keep  it  from  him.  Was  this  his  way  of 
saying  good-bye,  she  wondered. 

"  I  lay  everything  here  at  your  feet ;  if  you  like  it, 
it  is  all  yours,"  he  cried. 

"  Don't  be  a  goose,  Guy,"  she  said  snatching  her 
hand  away.  "  What  on  earth  would  I  do  with  such 
a  place  as  this  ?  " 

"  Come  to  it — be  the  chatelaine  of  my  castle,  reign 
here,  Amber,  as  you  do  in  my  heart.  I  got  the  place 
cheap;  but  I  shall  spend  money  on  it — by  degrees — 
to  make  it  worthy  of  your  acceptance,  Amber,  my 
own — my " 

At  this  point  a  rat  put  in  an  appearance  at  the  side 
of  the  door  and  rushed  out  through  the  open  window. 

"Was  it  for  this  you  asked  me  to  come  here?" 
cried  Amber,  bravely  ignoring  what  other  girls  might 
have  regarded  as  a  legitimate  interruption  of  the 
scene.  "  Yes,  you  asked  me  to  come  here  in  order  to 
make  your  absurd  proposal  to  me.  You  should  be 
ashamed  of  yourself,  when  you  knew  so  well  that  I 
thought  of  our  friendship  as  wholly  disinterested.  If 
I  had,  for  one  moment " 

"  I  thought  you  saw  it  coming,"  said  he  hanging 
his  head. 

"  What  coming  ?  " 

"This." 

"  You  have  given  me  a  blow,  Guy — I  thought  that 
you  were  a  sincere  friend." 

"  So  I  was — I  am.     But  I  can't  help  loving  you  all 


22O 


the  same.  Great  Queen  of  Sheba,  you  don't  fancy 
that  what  you  call  Platonic  friendship  can  go  on  be- 
yond a  certain  point.  It's  all  very  well  for  a  begin- 
ning ;  it  makes  a  good  enough  basis  for  a  start — but, 
hang  it  all,  you  don't  think  that  a  chap  with  any  self- 
respect  would  be  content — when  there's  a  pretty  girl 
like  you — the  prettiest  and  the  dearest  girl  that  ever 
lived Who  the  mischief  is  bawling  out  there  ?  " 

"  They  are  calling  to  me  from  the  launch,"  said 
Amber.  "  It  is  just  as  well.  Guy,  I  am  not  angry 
— only  disappointed.  You  have  disappointed  me.  I 
thought  that  you  at  least — they  are  getting  impatient. 
I  must  go." 

She  hastened  away  to  the  open  window  and  he 
followed  her  with  a  face  of  melancholy  so  congenial 
with  the  prevailing  note  of  the  house  that  an  artist 
would  have  been  delighted  to  include  him  in  a  picture 
of  "  The  Gables  from  the  River." 

She  ran  through  the  long  grass  and  reached  the 
launch  so  breathless  that  she  could  with  difficulty  ex- 
plain that  she  had  been  watching  a  rat. 

Every  one  in  the  boat  knew  that  Guy  had  been 
asking  her  to  marry  him.  Chaps  only  have  that 
hangdog  expression,  worn  with  some  distinction  by 
Guy  Overton,  when  they  have  been  proposing  to 
girls,  the  two-month  husband  explained  to  his  wife. 

A  girl  only  shakes  hands  with  a  man  so  cordially 
as  Amber  had  shaken  hands  with  Guy,  when  she  has 
just  refused  to  marry  him,  Josephine  knew. 

And  the  boatman  shifted  the  lever. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THERE  was  a  field  of  wheat  not  so  far  from  The 
Weir.  It  was  approached  by  a  stile  from  the  road- 
way and  a  narrow  path  went  through  it  to  the  Clieve- 
don  Woods  as  evenly  as  a  canal  divides  a  landscape. 
At  the  further  end  there  was  another  stile  and  a  bank 
of  low  trees,  with  a  hollow  and  a  slope  overgrown 
with  green  grass  and  a  myriad  of  wild  flowers  beloved 
by  bees.  A  grass  meadow  with  a  little  stream  creep- 
ing through  it,  and  here  and  there  a  tuft  of  rushes ; 
behind  all  the  long  high  ridge  of  the  woods — these  are 
the  details  of  which  one  becomes  aware  when  one  has 
begun  to  recover  from  the  vast  wonder  of  the  field 
of  wheat. 

Josephine  was  not  wearing  a  hat.  She  had  merely 
picked  up  a  crimson  sunshade  after  breakfast  on  the 
Monday,  and  had  gone  alone  strolling  through  the 
garden,  a  magazine  under  her  arm.  She  had  given 
her  maid  instructions  to  be  ready  to  start  for  town 
after  lunch — the  other  guests,  with  the  exception  of 
Pierce  Winwood,  had  already  taken  their  departure, 
and  Pierce  Winwood  had  gone  to  Marlow  with  Lady 
Severn  and  Amber.  That  was  how  Josephine  came 
to  be  alone,  and  to  be  glad  to  be  alone.  She  had  be- 
come aware  of  the  fact  that  she  had  something  to 
think  about,  and  she  hoped  that  half  an  hour  on  the 
green  shorn  breadths  of  grass  with  the  river  at  her 

221 


222  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

feet  and  the  whisper  of  the  weir  in  her  ears  would  be 
a  relief  to  her. 

She  strolled  down  the  lawn  to  the  river,  but  a 
steamer  with  people  aboard  drinking  out  of  bottles  and 
playing  on  banjos,  when  the  sexes  had  duly  exchanged 
hats,  was  hooting  for  the  lock-keeper,  so  she  turned 
away  to  the  upper  part  of  the  garden.  She  found  that 
she  had  more  to  think  about  than  the  garden  would 
contain,  so  she  passed  out  by  the  little  gate  to  the 
silent  road  and  stood  for  a  moment  looking  along  its 
dusty  curve  to  where  it  got  lost  in  the  dimness  of 
overshadowing  trees,  and  then,  in  the  other  direction, 
where  it  twisted  round  by  the  boathouse  at  the  bridge. 
She  began  to  walk  in  this  direction,  slowly  and  list- 
lessly, and  when  she  came  to  the  stile  leading  to  the 
wheatfield,  she  mounted  it,  and  remained  for  some 
time  on  the  topmost  step  gazing  along  the  surface  of 
that  yellow  flaming  plain  lost  in  the  marvel  of  it, 
when  there  came  a  wind  too  light  for  her  to  feel  upon 
her  face,  and  fanned  the  moveless  breadth  of  flame 
into  a  thousand  flickers,  and  the  whole  wide  field  of  a 
hundred  acres  became  quickly  alive,  and  full  of  the 
whisperings  of  newly  acquired  vitality. 

She  felt  that  she  had  never  seen  anything  so  beau- 
tiful before.  She  leaped  down  from  the  topmost  step 
to  the  path,  with  all  the  delight  of  the  swimmer 
springing  into  the  sea.  The  waving  mass  closed  on 
her  head  for  a  moment  but  when  she  recovered  her- 
self she  was  head  and  shoulders  above  the  grain.  She 
strolled  along  the  flat  track  by  the  side  of  the  little 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  223 

bank,  with  blue  wild  flowers  on  one  hand  and  flaring 
poppies  on  the  other,  breathing  of  the  fresh  warm  sun- 
light that  seemed  to  be  enclosed  between  the  green 
bank  and  the  serried  lines  of  the  ripe  grain. 

And  then,  where  a  space  had  been  cleared  by  the 
reaping-machine,  and  the  bundles  of  grain  lay  at 
regular  intervals  along  the  ground,  there  arose  from 
under  her  very  feet  a  flock  of  blue  and  white  wood 
pigeons,  and  flew  for  a  few  dozen  yards  ahead,  then 
fell  in  an  exquisite  curve,  the  sunlight  gleaming  for  a 
moment  upon  every  white  feather  in  succession  until 
all  had  dropped  at  the  brink  of  the  field. 

When  she  reached  the  farther  stile  with  the  woods 
at  her  back  she  seated  herself,  feeling  that  she  never 
wished  to  get  back  to  the  world  again, — that  she  had 
at  last  reached  a  spot  where  all  the  joy  of  life  was  to 
be  had.  There  was  nothing  better  than  this  in  all 
the  world — this  breathing  of  warm  air,  this  listening 
to  the  hum  of  insects,  this  watching  of  the  myriad 
butterflies,  fluttering,  and  flitting  and  poising  over 
everything  that  was  sweet  smelling  on  the  bank  and 
in  the  grass,  this  gazing  on  the  rippling  flames  that 
burned  yellow  into  the  distance  where  no  ripple 
stirred.  The  beauty  and  the  quietness  of  it  all !  The 
satisfied  sense  of  waiting  without  emotion  for  the  heat 
of  the  noontide,  of  waiting,  without  longing,  for  the 
poppy  sunset — for  the  sounds  of  the  evening,  the 
cooing  of  the  wood  pigeons,  the  cawing  of  the  rooks, 
with  now  and  again  the  rich  contralto  of  a  blackbird's 
note. 


224  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

And  then  the  warm  silence  of  a  night  pow- 
dered with  stars,  as  the  soft  blue  of  the  sky  became 
dark,  but  without  ceasing  to  be  blue  !  Oh  that  sum- 
mer night ! 

The  thought  of  it  all  as  she  could  imagine  it,  meant 
rest. 

That  was  what  every  one  needed — rest ;  and  she 
felt  that  she  had  wandered  away  from  man  and  into 
the  very  heart  of  the  peace  of  God. 


The  thought  that  she  had  a  thought  which  was  not 
one  suggested  by  the  landscape  irritated  her.  She  felt 
that  she  had  a  good  reason  for  being  irritated  with 
Ernest  Clifton  who  was  responsible  for  her  failure  to 
continue  in  this  dream  of  perfect  repose.  She  felt 
irritated  with  him  just  as  one  is  with  a  servant  who 
blunders  into  the  room  where  one  is  in  a  sleep  of 
divine  tranquillity. 

During  the  ten  days  that  had  passed  since  he  had 
surprised  her — for  a  few  moments — by  giving  her  the 
release  for  which  she  had  asked  him,  only  to  impose 
upon  her  a  much  stronger  obligation,  she  had  been 
thinking  over  his  trickery — the  word  had  been  forced 
upon  her;  she  felt  quite  shocked  at  its  persistent  in- 
trusion but  that  made  no  difference  :  the  word  had 
come  and  the  word  remained  with  her  until  she  was 
accustomed  to  it. 

But  it  was  not  until  now  that  she  asked  herself  the 
question ; 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  225 

"  How  could  I  ever  have  fancied  that  I  loved  the  man 
who  could  thus  juggle  with  me  ?  " 

She  knew  that  what  she  had  told  him  on  that  Sun- 
day at  Ranelagh  was  quite  true :  she  had  been  greatly 
troubled  for  some  months  at  the  thought  that  she  was 
guilty  of  deception — a  certain  amount  of  deception — 
in  respect  of  her  engagement  to  him.  The  deception 
of  her  father  and  mother  had  become  at  last  unendur- 
able to  her.  She  began  to  despise  herself  for  it  all 
and  to  feel  humiliated  every  time  she  was  by  the  side 
of  Ernest  Clifton  when  the  eyes  of  people  were  watch- 
ing her.  She  had  to  act  as  if  he  was  nothing  to  her, 
and  this  dissimulation  had  become  unendurable,  so 
that  she  had  sought  for  the  opportunity  of  telling  him 
that  he  must  release  her. 

She  thought  that  she  cared  for  him  even  then — she 
thought  that  the  first  step  apart  from  him  was  taken 
by  her  when  she  perceived  that  he  did  not  believe 
what  she  had  said  to  him  at  that  time.  She  knew 
that  he  did  not  believe  that  it  pained  her  to  deceive 
her  father  and  mother — she  knew  that  he  was  think- 
ing "  Who  is  the  other  man  ?  "  and  then  she  was 
conscious  of  taking  the  first  step  apart  from  him. 

But  it  was  not  a  mere  step  that  she  had  taken  away 
from  him  on  that  evening  on  the  Italian  terrace  of  the 
Kensington  garden  when  she  had  recovered  from  her 
surprise  at  his  generosity  only  to  discover  that  he  had 
tricked  her — that  he  had  substituted  a  new  bondage 
for  the  old  from  which  he  had  released  her — it  was 
not  a  mere  step :  she  became  conscious  of  the  fact 


226  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

that  he  and  she  were  miles  asunder — that  she  detested 
him  so  much  that  she  could  scarcely  realise  that  she 
had  ever  cared  a  jot  for  him.  And  now 

Well  now  she  was  irritated  that  the  thought  that 
she  had  yet  to  free  herself  entirely  from  him,  came 
upon  her  shattering  with  a  note  of  discord  her  crystal 
dream  of  peace. 

She  would  write  to  him — no,  she  would  see  him 
face  to  face  before  another  day  had  passed,  and  tell 
him  that  she  perceived  how  he  had  juggled  with  her, 
and  that  she  declined  to  be  bound  to  him  by  any  tie. 
It  was  a  comfort  to  her  to  reflect  that  she  had  need 
only  to  tell  him  to  go  to  her  father  and  ask  his  con- 
sent to  her  promising  to  marry  him,  and  her  separation 
from  him  would  be  complete,  for  she  knew  some- 
thing of  the  ambition  of  her  father,  and  that  he  had 
other  views  respecting  her  future  than  to  marry  her 
to  a  man  who  though  perhaps  possessing  some  power 
as  the  wire  puller — the  stage  manager,  as  it  were — of 
a  political  party,  was  far  from  being  a  match  for  the 
daughter  of  a  man  who  hoped  for  a  peerage.  Mr. 
Clifton  himself  had  been  well  aware  of  this  fact,  or 
he  would  not  have  imposed  upon  her  that  bondage  of 
secrecy  which  had  become  so  irksome  to  her. 

Yes,  she  would  tell  him  that  unless  her  father  gave 
his  consent,  she  would  consider  herself  bound  in  no 
way  to  him — not  even  by  that  subtle  silken  cord  of 
mutual  faith,  "  mutual  confidence  holds  us  together," 
was  the  phrase  that  he  had  employed. 

She  laughed  at  the  thought  of  it. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  227 

"  Does  it — does  it  ?  "  she  thought,  through  her 
laugh.  "  Well,  perhaps — but " 

And  then  she  started,  hearing  through  the  hum  of 
the  wild  bees  about  the  sweet  briar  of  the  grassy  bank, 
the  sound  of  a  step  on  the  track  leading  from  the  stile 
through  the  woods.  She  started  and  then  her  face 
flamed  like  the  poppies  at  her  feet,  though  she  must 
have  seen  in  a  moment  that  the  man  who  had  vaulted 
over  the  rails  of  the  stile  was  no  stranger  but  only 
Pierce  Winwood. 

And  then  he  too  started  and  his  face — but  his  face 
being  already  the  colour  of  a  copper-beech  was  not 
susceptible  of  any  poppy  tint,  although  there  is  an 
inward  blushing,  just  as  there  is  an  inward  bleeding — 
far  more  fatal  than  the  other. 

Then  they  both  laughed,  with  their  heads  thrown 
back,  after  the  manner  of  people  who  give  themselves 
over  to  a  laugh. 

It  seemed  that  she  was  under  the  impression  that 
an  apology  for  her  presence  there  was  necessary,  for 
there  was  more  than  an  explanatory  note  in  her  voice 
while  she  said  : 

"  I  had  no  idea  that — why,  I  thought  that  you  had 
gone  to  Marlow — I  was  in  the  garden  but  there  was 
a  horribly  crowded  steamer  with  a  terrible  Hampstead- 
ing  crowd  aboard  and  a  whistle.  I  came  out  on  the 
road  and  was  amazed  to  find  that  I  had  never  heard 
that  a  wheatfield  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  the 
world.  How  is  it  that  the  people  here  have  been 
talking  on  any  other  subject  during  the  past  few  days  ? 


228  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

What  else  is  there  worth  talking  about  in  comparison 
with  this  ?  " 

She  made  a  motion  with  her  sunshade  to  include  all 
the  landscape.  He  did  not  look  at  the  landscape  : 
he  was  too  busy  looking  at  her. 

"  I  wondered  what  it  could  be  compared  to,"  she 
resumed  with  great  rapidity.  She  did  not  show  her 
disappointment  at  his  disregard  of  the  glory  of  mellow 
growth  which  he  had  taken  the  trouble  to  indicate. 
"  Oh,  what  is  worthy  of  being  mentioned  in  the  same 
breath  as  this  ?  But  how  did  you  come  here 

from  that  direction  ? " 

"  I  crossed  the  river  by  the  bridge  and  took  a  stroll 
through  the  woods,"  said  he.  "  I  was  not  sure  that  1 
should  find  a  path  through  this  field,  but  when  I  saw 
the  stile  I  had  hopes." 

"  That  is  how  people  come  upon  the  best  things 
that  life  has  in  store  for  them — by  the  merest  fluke," 
said  she,  and  she  made  a  movement  as  if  she  under- 
stood that  they  were  to  walk  together  to  The  Weir. 

"  Don't  let  us  go  away  for  another  minute,"  said 
he,  without  moving. 

She  turned  her  head  only,  with  the  sunshade  over 
it.  An  enquiry  was  on  her  face. 

"  Don't  go  away,"  he  repeated.  "  I  was  going  to 
put  those  words  of  yours  to  the  test." 

"What  words?  Did  I  say  anything?  Oh,  the 
beauty  of  the  wheatfield  ?  I  will  not  have  it  ana- 
lysed by  any  canon  of  criticism.  If  you  say  that  it 
is  too  yellow  I  shall  never  speak  to  you  again." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  229 

"  I  will  not  say  that,  and  yet  perhaps  you  will 
never  speak  to  me  again." 

The  smile  faded  away  from  her  face  at  the  tone  of 
his  voice. 

"  I  will  listen  to  you,"  she  said  resolutely. 

He  looked  into  her  face  for  a  few  moments  and 
then  he  took  a  step  or  two  away  from  her,  actually 
turning  round  to  do  so.  His  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 
ground. 

"  You  said  that  people  come  upon  the  best  things 
in  life  as — as  I  came  here — to  you,  and  I  am  going  to 
find  out  whether  I  have  come  upon  the  best  or  the 
worst  thing  that  life  has  to  offer  me,  for  I  am  going 
to  tell  you  that  I  love  you  and  to  ask  you  if  you  can 
give  me  any  hope  that  you  will  one  day  think  of  me 
as  loving  you." 

He  was  now  standing  face  to  face  with  her.  He 
spoke  in  a  low  voice  but  not  in  even  tones,  until  she 
gave  a  little  cry — it  sounded  like  a  sob — when  he  was 
half  way  through  his  sentences,  making  a  motion  of 
protest  with  one  hand  ;  then  his  voice  became  quite 
steady — steady  almost  to  a  point  of  coldness. 

She  did  not  answer  him  at  once.  But  there  came 
a  silence,  through  which  they  could  both  hear  the  hum 
of  the  wild  bees  on  the  green  bank. 

Two  sulphur  butterflies  danced  above  them  in  the  air. 

She  watched  the  butterflies,  and  then  glanced  at  the 
bank. 

"There  is  sweet  briar  about  here  I  am  sure,"  she 
said,  as  if  they  had  been  discussing  the  herbarium. 


230  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

He  thought  he  appreciated  her  mood  of  the  mo- 
ment. 

"Yes,"  he  said;  "I  think  there  must  be  sweet 
briar  somewhere." 

He  did  not  stir  hand  or  foot.  His  hands  were  in 
the  pocket  of  his  jacket. 

She  took  a  few  steps  to  the  bank ;  then  her  sun- 
shade slipped  from  her  shoulder  and  fell  awkwardly 
on  the  ground  behind  her;  for  she  had  no  hand  to 
hold  it ;  she  was  holding  both  her  hands  to  her  face 
sobbing  in  them. 

He  made  no  move.  He  did  not  even  recover  her 
sunshade,  sprawling  there  a  mighty  crimson  thing 
among  the  crimson  poppies  and  the  pink.  He  could 
not  understand  her  tears ;  he  only  felt  that  she  could 
not  be  indifferent  to  him.  There  are  only  two  sorts 
of  tears ;  they  never  come  from  indifference. 

And  then  she  seated  herself  on  the  bank  and  wiped 
her  tears  away  with  her  handkerchief.  He  saw  how 
the  sunlight  was  snared  among  the  strands  of  her  hair. 
He  had  never  known  that  it  had  that  reddish  gold 
tinge  among  its  masses  of  rich  brown.  It  maddened 
him  with  its  beauty ;  but  still  he  could  not  move.  He 
had  a  feeling  that  it  would  be  fatal  for  him  to  make 
the  least  movement. 

He  had  ample  time  to  admire  this  newly-discovered 
charm  of  her  hair,  for  she  did  not  look  at  him  nor  did 
she  speak  until  several  minutes  had  passed. 

Then  she  tossed  from  her  the  handkerchief  that 
she  had  rolled  into  a  round  mass,  as  a  child  flings  its 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  231 

ball  away,  and  the  recklessness  that  the  act  suggested 
was  prolonged  in  her  voice,  as  she  said  : 

"  What  a  fool  I  am  !  Why  should  I  cry  because  I 
know  that  you  love  me  when  I  too  know  that  I  love 
you,  and  that  whatever  happens  I  shall  marry  you — 
you — you — and  not  the  man  whom  I  promised  to 
marry  ?  What  a  fool !  " 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

HE  was  beside  her  in  a  moment.  An  inarticulate 
sound  of  triumph  had  come  from  him — the  legacy  of 
some  carniverous  ancestor  coeval  with  Adam.  He 
was  kissing  her  hands,  and  her  face,  and,  when  she 
bowed  her  head,  he  kissed  the  shining  beauty  of  her 
hair. 

It  had  the  taste  of  sunlight. 

She  did  not  take  any  great  pains  to  prevent  him. 
She  did  not  at  that  moment  see  that  there  was  a  par- 
ticular need  to  do  so.  It  seemed  to  her  so  good  to  be 
kissed  by  him. 

He  had  an  impression  that  she  kissed  him  back — 
once. 

Then  they  looked  into  each  other's  faces  and 
laughed  quite  pleasantly. 

"  How  funny,  isn't  it  ?  "  she  said,  "  you  have  not 
seen  me  more  than  a  dozen  times." 

He  was  unable  to  see  what  was  funny  in  the  mat- 
ter— that  was  why  he  laughed  very  seriously,  and 
whispered,  "  My  beloved  !  "  in  her  ear. 

"  My  beloved,"  he  said  again  holding  her  hand  close 
to  him.  "  My  beloved,  never  say  that  I  have  not 
been  seeing  you  all  my  life.  From  the  time  I  first 
knew  what  love  meant  I  loved  you — an  ideal — I  loved 
the  Ideal  that  was  you.  I  wondered  if  I  should  ever 
meet  you.  I  hoped  that  I  should  or  it  would  not 
232 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  233 

have  been  worth  my  while  to  live.  But  I  met  you — 
you  came  to  me." 

"  Yes,  I  have  come  to  you,"  she  said.     "But    .    .    ." 

"  Ah,  why  should  you  introduce  that  note  of  dis- 
cord ?"  he  cried.  "You  said  something  just  now — 
something — I  wonder  if  I  heard  it  aright  .  .  . 
Never  mind.  This  hour  is  mine,  is  it  not  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said  doubtfully.  "  You  have 
made  it  yours,  have  you  not  ?  Oh,  yes  it  must  be 
your  hour — and  mine — I  suppose  it  must  be  mine  too 
— because  I  never  felt  so  happy  before;  and  I  do  not 
even  let  the  thought  of — of — the  other  man  come  be- 
tween us." 

There  was  a  dreadful  recklessness  in  her  voice. 
She  could  not  help  it :  she  felt  reckless  at  that  mo- 
ment. She  felt  that  she  was  retaliating  justly  upon 
the  man  who  had  tricked  her.  She  would  have  liked 
if  he  had  suddenly  appeared  on  the  other  side  of  the 
stile  and  looked  on.  She  would  have  kissed  her  lover 
before  his  face.  What  could  he  have  done  to  her  ? 
Did  he  really  fancy  that  Pierce  Winwood  would  allow 
him  to  interfere  ?  If  he  did  he  was  a  fool. 

He  did  not  know  that  it  is  part  of  a  woman's  na- 
ture to  be  reckless — once  in  her  life ;  and  he  became 
a  little  afraid  of  the  way  in  which  she  was  speaking 
to  him.  He  did  not  know  how  she  had  been  driven 
ahead  by  the  thought  that  another  man  had  tried  to 
trick  her  into  being  true  to  him. 

She  was  having  her  retaliation. 

He  did  not  object  in  the  least  to  be  a  participator 


234  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

in  it,  though  he  knew  nothing  about  it.  He  held  her 
hands  in  his  own  and  looked  into  her  face. 

"You  were  right,"  he  whispered;  "it  is  the  best 
day  of  my  life.  And  I  thought  that  I  came  here  by 
chance.  You  love  me,  don't  you  ?  I  wonder  if  you 
really  do  love  me.  Shall  I  awaken  and  find  that  this 
marvel  of  sunshine  and  summer  has  fled  forever? 
Were  you  really  thinking  of  me  as  I  came  up  ?  It 
seems  ridiculous  to  hope  so  much." 

"  I  think  I  must  have  been  thinking  of  you,"  she 
said,  "  if  I  had  not  been  thinking  of  you  should  I 
have  felt  so  ...  Oh,  I  recollect  now — I  was 
not  thinking  of  you — I  was  only  thinking  of  the 
loveliness  of  the  world — that  was  why  I  felt  angry 
that  he  had  bound  me  to  him — if  I  never  really  hated 
him  before  I  hated  him  then.  You  will  not  let  me 
go  back  to  him,  will  you  ?  You  must  promise  to  save 
me  from  him." 

She  had  caught  him  by  the  arm.  All  her  reckless- 
ness had  vanished.  She  was  appealing  to  him  as  a 
child  appeals  to  one  for  protection  against  a  bogey  man. 

He  had  his  arms  about  her. 

"No  one  shall  take  you  from  me,"  he  said.  "  Who 
is  it  that  you  fear,  my  dearest  ?  " 

She  stared  at  him  for  some  moments,  and  then 
burst  into  a  laugh. 

"I  forgot — I  forgot,"  she  cried.  "You  never 
heard  it.  How  was  it  possible  for  you  to  hear  it  ?  " 

Then  she  put  down  a  hand  to  his  that  clasped  her 
waist,  and  held  it  away  from  her.  Her  eyes  were 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  235 

looking  out  over  the  whispering  breadth  of  the  wheat- 
field.  The  wood  pigeons  were  still  rising  at  intervals 
and  curving  downward  with  a  glint  of  sunlight  on 
their  feathers. 

She  rose  from  where  she  was  sitting  against  the 
bank,  and  picked  up  her  sunshade. 

"  I  am  afraid  that  it  is  all  wrong,"  she  said,  shak- 
ing her  head.  "  I  have  been  too  sudden — I  had  no 
right  to  listen  to  you — to  tell  you — but  you  came 
upon  me  before  I  was  aware  of  it,  and — oh,  I  told 
you  just  how  I  felt.  As  I  kept  telling  you,  I  felt  that 
I  was  telling  myself  the  truth  for  the  first  time.  But 
— well,  I  was  free — that  is  to  say,  I  should  have  been 
free  if  he  had  not  said  that  he  trusted  in  me.  That 
was  his  trick.  .  .  .  Oh,  why  did  you  come  here 
to-day  ?  Why — why — why  ?  Could  you  not  have 
waited  until  I  had  carried  out  my  resolution  to  go  to 
him  and  tell  him  that  I  would  not  be  bound  by  any 
trick  of  his  ?  You  had  no  right  to  come  as  you  did. 
I  feel  that  I  have  been  wrong — horribly  wrong.  I 
should  have  gone  to  him  first." 

"  Yes ;  but  I  came — I  came,  and  you  cannot  take 
back  a  word  that  you  spoke — that's  one  good  thing 
anyway,"  said  he  in  the  voice  of  a  man  that  no 
woman's  treble  can  oppose,  unless  it  becomes  shrill, 
and  there  is  a  craning  of  the  neck  as  it  is  uttered. 

"  You  will  say  that  women  have  no  sense  of  honour 
— I  have  heard  men  say  that,"  she  continued,  and 
there  was  indignation  in  her  voice.  "No  sense  of 
honour!  Perhaps  we  have  not;  but  I  meant — yes, 


236  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

it  was  my  sense  of  honour  that  made  me  make  up  my 
mind  to  go  to  him  and  give  him  to  understand  that  I 
meant  to  be  free — free,  not  merely  in  name,  but 
really  free — free  so  that  he  should  have  no  right  to 
say  that  he  trusted  me.  He  said  that  he  trusted  me 
— those  were  his  words ;  they  sounded  generous  at  the 

moment,  but  then  I  perceived  that — that "  Her 

utterance  became  more  deliberate;  then  it  seemed  to 
occur  to  her  that  there  was  something  wanting  on  the 
part  of  her  auditor :  there  was  a  puzzled  expression 
on  his  face  that  puzzled  her  at  first  interfering  with 
her  fluency ;  then  all  at  once  she  seemed  to  recollect 
that  the  extent  of  her  knowledge  of  the  subject  on 
which  she  was  speaking  was  a  good  deal  more  than 
his  could  possibly  be.  How  could  he  be  expected  to 
know  what  had  been  kept  a  secret  from  her  father 
and  mother — from  all  the  world  ? 

"  You  know  nothing,"  she  said  after  a  long  pause. 
"  I  shall  have  to  tell  you  everything.  Perhaps  you 
will  feel  that  I  have  acted  badly — disgracefully — with- 
out a  sense  of  honour.  I  dare  say  I  have — yes,  I  feel 
that  I  have  behaved  badly ;  but  it  was  your  fault. 
You  came  too  soon.  I  tell  you  that  indeed  I  had 
thought  it  all  out,  and  made  up  my  mind  that  I  should 
be  free  from  all  blame." 

"  Tell  me  all  that  is  on  your  mind,  my  dearest," 
said  he.  "  You  have  already  told  me  all  that  is  on 
your  heart." 

"  It  doesn't  matter  what  he  may  think — now,  does 
it  ? "  she  cried. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  237 

"  Nothing  matters  so  long  as  we  love  each  other," 
he  responded  glibly  and  gladly. 

"  And  it  really  isn't  much  after  all  that  I  have  to 
tell,"  she  said.  "  How  I  ever  came  to  agree  to  his 
proposal,  I  cannot  explain." 

"  Whose  proposal  ?  " 

"  Whose  ? — Whose  ?  Oh,  you  do  not  know  even 
so  much.  Listen.  Nearly  a  year  ago  I  fancied  that 
I  was  in  love  with  Ernest  Clifton.  At  any  rate  he 
told  me  that  he  was  in  love  with  me  and  I  admired 
him  so  much  for  the  way  he  had  worked  himself  up 
from  the  humblest  of  positions — I  suppose  that's  the 
best  explanation  of  the  matter — I  agreed  to  marry 
him,  and  he  also  persuaded  me  to  keep  my  engage- 
ment secret  from  all  the  world  :  he  knew  that  my 
father  would  not  sanction  it  until  at  least  he  had  a  seat 
in  Parliament.  Well,  it  was  kept  a  secret ;  but  I 
gradually  so  came  to  see  that  I  was  acting  wrongly — 
the  whole  business  so  weighed  upon  me  that  I  was 
conscious  of  my  whole  character — my  whole  nature 
changing,  and  I  insisted  on  his  releasing  me  from  my 
engagement." 

"  And  he  did  so  ?  It  would  not  matter  to  me 
whether  he  did  so  or  not ;  but  I  suppose  he  was  wise 
enough  to  do  so." 

"  After  some  time,  and  a  letter  or  two,  he  said  that 
he  released  me ;  and  then — this  was  what  made  me 
angry — he  said,  l  Between  you  and  me  there  is  no 
need  for  the  formality  of  an  engagement.  I  have  im- 
plicit faith  in  you  and  I  know  that  you  have  implicit 


238  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

faith  in  me.  We  can  trust  each  other.'  Now  don't 
you  see  how  despicably  clever  he  was  ?  Don't  you 
see  that  while  he  released  me  with  one  hand  he  was 
holding  me  to  him  with  the  other  ?  Don't  you  see 
that  in  listening  to  you  here  to-day — in  admitting  to 
you  that  it  is  you  and  none  other  whom  I  love,  I  have 
acted  dishonestly — shamefully,  if  you  insist  on  it." 

"  I  don't  insist  on  it.  I  am  glad  that  I  came  here 
when  I  did,  taking  you  by  surprise.  I  see  clearly 
that  if  I  had  not  taken  you  by  surprise  I  might  never 
have  had  a  chance  of  hearing  the  truth  from  you — the 
truth  which  has  made  a  new  man  of  me." 

"  I  don't  agree  with  you.  I  feel  that  when  he 
trusted  me — cannot  you  see  that  he  made  it  a  ques- 
tion of  honour  with  me  ?  Haven't  you  heard  of  a 
soldier's  parole  ?  I  have  broken  my  parole.  That's 
what  I  feel." 

"  My  dearest  girl,  do  you  fancy  that  parole  can  be  a 
one-sided  agreement  ?  Is  your  sense  of  honour  to  be 
entrapped  by  sophistry  ?  Talk  of  parole — a  man  to 
whom  you  consider  yourself  bound  by  a  promise  re- 
leases you  from  the  consequence  of  this  promise,  and 
then  tells  you  that  though  you  promised  not  to  run 
away,  and  though  he  releases  you  from  that  promise 
he  trusts  in  your  honour  not  to  run  away.  What 
sophistry  is  this  ?  It  might  do  well  enough  for  a  po- 
litical juggler,  but  it  is  not  for  such  people  as  you  or 
I.  You  didn't  say  to  him,  did  you  ? — '  I  agree  to  be 
bound  to  you  by  the  faith  which  we  have  in  each 
other.' " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  239 

"  He  took  care  to  give  me  no  chance  of  replying  to 
him  one  way  or  another." 

"  Then  cannot  you  perceive  that  he  had  no  claim 
on  you  ?  " 

She  was  silent.  The  fact  was  that  she  did  not 
perceive  it.  But  undoubtedly  the  way  he  proved  the 
point  was  agreeable  to  her.  Of  course  it  is  quite 
possible  for  a  man  to  prove  a  point  to  a  woman's 
satisfaction  and  yet  to  leave  her  unsatisfied  as  to 
whether  or  not  his  contention  is  correct.  Pierce 
Winwood  had  proved  to  this  young  woman  that  she 
had  been  well  within  her  rights  in  accepting  him  as 
her  lover,  and  yet  she  had  an  uneasy  feeling  that  she 
had  done  the  other  man  a  wrong.  An  old  rhyme 
went  jingling  through  her  brain,  with  all  the  irrita- 
ting force  of  a  milk  cart  hurrying  for  a  train — some- 
thing about  the  advisability  of  being  off  with  the  old 
love  before  being  on  with  the  new. 

But  that  was  just  what  she  had  done  :  she  had  been 
strictly  conscientious.  She  had  written  to  Ernest 
Clifton  asking  to  be  released  from  the  promise  which 
she  had  made  to  him  and  he  had  freed  her — what  the 
young  man  beside  her  said  was  perfectly  true  :  she 
had  not  been  a  party  to  the  parole — it  had  been  forced 
upon  her.  She  had  not  consented  to  it.  Nothing  in 
the  world  could  be  clearer  than  this. 

And  yet  the  result  of  thinking  over  it  all  was  to 
leave  her  with  a  feeling  of  uneasiness  in  respect  of 
her  own  action  and  of  still  greater  uneasiness  in  re- 
spect of  his  sense  of  honour. 


24o  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  Don't  think  anything  more  about  the  business," 
said  he. 

"I  will  not,"  she  said.  "I  will  not;  after  all,  did 
not  he  try  to  trick  me,  and  why  should  not  I,  if  I 

saw  that — that But  you — well,  I  have  made  a 

confession  to  you  at  any  rate,  and  that's  something, 
isn't  it  ?  You  are  not  angry  ?  " 

"  Angry — I — angry " 

He  was  taking  such  action  in  regard  to  her  as 
should  he  thought  convince  her  that  he  was  not  per- 
manently embittered  against  her;  but  she  gave  him  to 
understand  that  his  word  of  mouth  was  quite  adequate 
to  allay  her  doubts. 

"Ah,  no — no,"  she  said;  and  his  lips  had  to  be 
content  with  the  back  of  her  hand.  "  I  was  taken  by 
surprise  just  now.  I  did  wrong,  considering  the  po- 
sition in  which  I  stood — in  which  I  still  stand." 

"  Good  heavens,"  he  cried,  "  haven't  I  proved — 
didn't  you  agree  with  me " 

"  Yes,  yes ;  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  it,"  she 
assented  with  the  utmost  cordiality.  "Yes;  still — 
but  I  see  clearly  what  I. can  do.  I  can  tell  him  that 
without  my  father's  consent  it  would  be  impossible 
for  me  to — to — to  be  otherwise  than  free.  I  will  tell 
him  that  I  consider  myself  to  be  free — that  I  consid- 
ered myself  to  be  so  from  the  moment  he  agreed  to 
my  taking  back  my  promise." 

He  could  not  see  that  anything  would  be  gained  by 
this  traffic  with  the  other  man ;  but  he  thought  that 
she  might  fancy  that  he  was  giving  himself  the  airs 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  241 

of  a  lover  too  early  in  his  career.  Only  half  an 
hour  had  elapsed  since  he  had  undertaken  to  play  the 
part,  and  though  ambitious  to  make  a  mark  in  the 
role,  he  thought  it  would  be  more  prudent  to  perfect 
himself  in  it  by  slow  degrees. 

Still  he  could  not  refrain  from  saying : 

"  I  wouldn't  bother  myself  much,  if  I  were  you,  in 
this  business.  These  chaps  are  so  clever  you  never 
know  quite  where  you  are  with  them.  I  see  plainly 
that  was  how  you  came  to  engage  yourself  to  him. 
He  told  you  of  his  hopes — you  wished  out  of  the 
goodness  and  generosity  of  your  heart  to  help  him 
on,  and  so — well,  there  you  were,  don't  you  see  ?  " 

"  That  was  exactly  how  it  was,"  she  cried.  "  You 
are  just  to  me.  I  know  now  that  I  never  loved  him 
— ah,  now  I  know  what  love  is  !  " 

"  My  beloved  !  " 

"  1  admired  him  for  his  courage — I  admired  him 
for  having  got  on  without  any  one  to  help  him — I  do 
so  still  :  indeed  there  is  a  good  deal  that  is  worthy  of 
admiration  about  him — and  respect — oh,  heaven 
knows  that  I  respect  him." 

The  lover  laughed.  He  knew  that  he  had  nothing 
to  fear  from  the  other  man  when  she  began  to  talk 
of  respecting  him.  In  fact  the  more  she  spoke  in 
praise  of  the  fellow  the  more  confident  he  felt  in  her 
love  for  himself.  Girls  do  not  talk  in  praise  of  the 
men  they  love.  They  simply  love  them. 

She  went  on. 

"  Yes,  I  thought — I  hoped  that  it  might  be  possible 


242  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

for  me  to  have  helped  him.  Perhaps  I  felt  flattered 
— every  one  about  me  was  saying  how  clever  he  was 
— that  he  was  one  of  the  coming  men — that  was  the 
phrase — I  think  I  hate  the  sound  of  it  now.  But  I 
dare  say  that  I  felt  flattered  ...  he  might  have 
chosen  some  other  girl,  you  see :  such  men  usually 
choose  girls  who  are  heiresses — and  yet  he  chose  me 
— I  suppose  I  felt  all  that." 

"  He'll  have  a  chance  of  choosing  one  of  the  heir- 
esses now,"  said  the  Real  Lover  grimly  ;  "  and  he'll 
do  it,  you  may  be  certain." 

She  did  not  respond  to  the  laugh  he  gave.  She  felt 
that  it  would  have  been  in  bad  taste.  When  the 
second  husband  looks  at  the  portrait  of  his  predecessor 
and  says  something  jocular  about  the  size  of  his  ears, 
the  widow  of  the  original  of  the  picture  does  not 
usually  acquiesce  with  a  smile,  even  though  her  late 
husband's  ears  were  as  long  as  Bottom's.  She  thinks 
that,  ears  or  no  ears,  he  was  once  her  gentle  joy. 

There  was  a  note  of  reproof  in  Josephine's  voice  as 
she  said : 

"You  must  do  him  the  justice  to  acknowledge  that 
he  was  not  mercenary  when  he  asked  me  to  give  him 
my  promise.  We  must  do  Mr.  Clifton  justice." 

The  Real  Lover  was  better  pleased  than  ever.  He 
had  almost  reached  the  chuckling  point  of  the  condi- 
tion of  being  pleased.  When  a  girl  talks  about  her 
desire  to  be  strictly  just  towards  a  man  she  (Mr.  Win- 
wood  felt  assured)  has  no  remnant  of  affection  for 
that  man.  The  moment  a  girl  becomes  just  towards  a 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  243 

man  she  ceases  to  have  any  affection  for  him.  There 
is  some  chance  for  a  man  (Winwood  knew)  so  long 
as  a  girl  is  capable  of  treating  him  unjustly.  The  as- 
sumption of  the  judicial  attitude  on  the  part  of  a  girl 
means  that  the  little  god  Cupid  has  had  the  bandage 
snatched  from  his  eyes,  and  Cupid  with  his  eyes  open 
might,  if  provided  with  a  jacket  covered  with  buttons, 
pass  for  the  boy  at  any  dentist's  door. 

The  Real  Lover  being,  by  virtue  of  his  Loverhood, 
strictly  dishonourable,  encouraged  her  to  be  just  to 
the  other. 

"  Yes,"  he  said  gravely,  "  I  should  be  sorry  to 
think  that  he  is  otherwise  than  a  good  kind  of  chap — 
for  a  professor  of  politics.  But  there  are  heiresses 
and  heiresses.  Money  is  a  very  minor  inheritance. 
I  am  quite  ready  to  believe  as  you  did,  that  he  had  a 
real — that  is  to  say,  a — an  honest — he  may  have 
fancied  it  was  honest — feeling  that  you — yes,  that 
you  could  advance  his  interests.  Oh,  I  don't  say  that 
these  clever  chaps  are  indifferent  to  beauty  and  grace 
and  the  soul  of  a  woman  as  the  means  of  advancing 
their  own  ends.  I  dare  say  that  he  had  a  notion 
that  you — but  he'll  certainly  have  a  look  in  where 
there  are  heiresses  now." 

"  You  are  grossly  unjust — you  are  grossly  ungener- 
ous— and  I  am  deeply  hurt,"  said  she. 

"  That  makes  me  love  you  all  the  more,"  he  cried. 
"  For  every  word  you  say  in  his  favour  I  will  love 
you  an  extra  thousand  years." 

He  knew  that  if  he  could  only  stimulate  her  to  talk 


244  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

still  more  generously  about  Mr.  Clifton  he  would 
soon  get  her  to  feel  that  she  had  not  been  guilty  of 
the  breach  of  honour  with  which  she  was  still  inclined 
to  reproach  herself.  It  was  so  like  a  woman,  he 
thought,  to  place  so  much  importance  upon  a  little 
flaw  in  the  etiquette  of  being  off  with  the  old  love 
and  on  with  the  new.  He  loved  her  the  more  for  her 
femininity  and  he  thought  that  he  might  lead  her  on  to 
feel  that  she  had  actually  been  generous  in  respect  of 
the  other. 

"  I  will  not  have  a  word  said  against  Mr.  Clifton," 
she  said  firmly. 

And  she  did  not  hear  a  word  said  against  him, 
though  she  had  so  earnestly  encouraged  him  to  say 
such  a  word ;  but  the  fact  was  that  the  dinner-hour 
of  the  prosaic  harvesters  had  come  to  an  end,  and  the 
reaping  machine,  with  the  patent  binding  attachment, 
began  to  work  under  their  eyes,  and  a  girl  cannot 
speak  well  even  of  the  man  whom  she  has  just 
thrown  over  when  so  interesting  a  machine  is  at 
hand. 

The  two  stood  spell-bound  watching  that  beautiful 
thing  of  blue  picked  out  with  red,  as  it  went  mightily 
on  its  way  down  the  wall  of  standing  grain,  stretching 
out  its  pendulous  arms  with  a  rhythmic  regularity  that 
a  poet  might  have  envied, — lifting  the  material  for  a 
sheaf  and  laying  it  along  with  more  than  the  tender- 
ness of  a  mother  for  her  child,  laying  it  in  its  cot. 

How  much  more  picturesque — how  much  more 
stimulating  to  the  imagination  was  not  this  marvellous 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  245 

creature — this  graminivorous  reanimated  thing  of  the 
early  world,  than  the  squalid  shrill-voiced,  beer-ex- 
haling reapers  of  the  fields  in  the  days  gone  by  ? 
This  was  the  boldly  expressed  opinion  of  both  the 
watchers,  though  each  of  them  had  a  good  word  to 
say  for  the  cycle  of  the  sickle. 

"  The  sickle  was  the  lyric  of  the  wheatfield,  the 
reaping  machine  is  the  epic,"  said  Josephine,  with  a 
laugh  at  her  attempt  to  satisfy  an  exacting  recollection 
of  a  picture  of  Ruth,  the  Moabitess,  with  her  sickle  in 
a  field  flooded  with  moonlight,  as  well  as  an  inexo- 
rable sense  of  what  is  due  to  the  modern  inventor. 

"  My  dearest,"  said  he,  "  I  know  now  that  you  are 
happy.  Are  you  happy,  my  dearest  ?  " 

"  Ah,  happy,  happy,  happy  !  "  she  whispered,  when 
their  faces  were  only  an  inch  or  two  apart. 

They  watched  the  wood  pigeons  circling,  and  dip- 
ping with  the  exceeding  delicacy  of  cherubic  wings 
until  they  dropped  upon  the  surface  of  the  freshly 
cleared  space.  They  breathed  the  warm  fragrance 
of  the  sun-saturated  air,  with  now  and  again  a  whiff 
of  the  wild  thyme  that  caused  them  to  hear  through 
the  whir  of  the  machinery  the  faint  strain  of  a  Shakes- 
perian  lyric  floating  above  the  oxlips  and  nodding 
violets  of  that  bank  beside  them — and  the  sweet  briar 
that  was  somewhere,  loved  of  the  wild  bee.  The 
sulphur  butterflies  went  through  their  dances  in  the 
air,  and  more  than  one  velvety  butterfly  in  brown — a 
floating  pansy — swung  on  the  poppies  of  the  path. 

"  You  are  happy,"  he  said  again. 


246  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  Happy — happy,  happy,"  she  repeated. 

Happiness  was  in  her  face — in  her  parted  lips — in 
her  half  closed  eyes — in  the  smile  of  the  maiden  who 
loves  she  knows  not  why,  and  she  cares  not  whom. 


She  was  not  quite  so  happy  when  she  had  returned 
to  her  home  two  hours  later  and  her  father  met  her 
saying : 

"  My  dearest  child,  Ernest  Clifton  has  been  with 
me  and  he  has  persuaded  me.  Josephine,  my  child, 
I  think  of  your  happiness  more  than  any  earthly  con- 
sideration. I  have  given  my  consent  to  your  engage- 
ment. Kiss  me,  my  Josephine." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

WHAT  could  she  say  ?  What  could  she  do  on 
hearing  this  sentence  pronounced  by  her  father? 

He  had  impressed  upon  her  the  kiss  of  a  father. 
It  lay  on  her  forehead  and  she  could  feel  it  there  like 
the  seal  to  a  contract.  It  was  his  formality  that 
made  her  feel  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  or  done 
further  in  the  matter.  When  once  a  contract  is  sealed 
no  one  can  do  anything.  Protest  is  useless.  Sub- 
mission is  taken  for  granted. 

But  to  come  up  fresh  from  the  glory  of  that  wheat- 
field — every  ear  of  grain  seemed  a  unit  in  the  sum  of 
the  love  which  was  alive  in  that  field — to  come  up  to 
town  by  the  side  of  the  man  whom  she  knew  that  she 
loved — his  hand  touching  hers  now  and  again — his 
eyes  evermore  drawing  her  own  to  meet  them  and  to 
mix  with  them — his  voice  still  in  her  heart — to  leave 
him  feeling  certain  of  him — certain  of  the  future,  and 
then  to  hear  her  father  speak  that  sentence  and  to 
feel  that  cold  wax  kiss  of  his  on  her  forehead — oh, 
the  thought  of  it  all  was  suffocating. 

What  could  she  say  ? 

How  could  she  tell  her  father  at  that  moment  that 
two  hours  ago  she  had  found  out  that  she  loved,  not 
the  man  who  had  by  some  mysterious  means  won  her 
father's  consent  to  her  name  being  united  with  his, 
but  quite  another  man — a  man  whom  her  father  had 
247 


248  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

only  seen  twice,  and  who  had  been  seen  by  herself 
not  more  than  a  dozen  times,  and  all  within  a  period 
of  a  few  weeks. 

The  surprise  was  too  much  for  her.  The  mystery 
of  it  all  overcame  her.  She  could  only  stare  at  her 
father,  while  he  held  her  hand  and  talked  to  her  in  a 
paternal,  parliamentary  way,  patting  the  back  of  her 
fingers  very  gently. 

She  felt  that  his  words  were  in  good  taste  and  well 
chosen.  She  knew  that  they  could  never  be  other- 
wise. But  how  could  they  ever  come  to  be  uttered  ? 
That  was  the  question  which  was  humming  through 
her  poor  head  all  the  while  he  was  assuring  her  that 
though  perhaps  he  had  had  other  views  in  his  mind  in 
respect  of  securing  her  happiness — other  ambitions  in 
regard  to  her  future,  still  he  was  content  to  waive  all 
in  order  that  she  might  marry  the  man  of  her  choice. 

"  Clifton  has  been  perfectly  frank  with  me,  my 
dear,"  he  said.  "  Oh,  yes,  he  confessed  to  me  that 
you  and  he  had  an  understanding  early  last  autumn 
that  if  my  consent  could  be  obtained  he  could  count 
on  you.  I  cannot  say  that  I  approve  of  such  secret 
understandings  between  young  people  :  an  exchange 
of  confidences  of  this  type  is  almost  equivalent  to  a 
secret  engagement,  is  it  not  ?  But  he  told  me  how 
sensitive  you  were  on  this  point  and  how  scrupulous 
you  were — I  know  that  he  admires  you  more  than 
ever  on  account  of  your  scruples — every  right  think- 
ing man,  lover  or  otherwise,  must  do  so.  He  too 
had  his  scruples — they  do  him  honour  also.  He  was 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  249 

sensible — fully  sensible  of  the  fact  that  we  had  every 
right  to  look  higher — much  higher  for  our  daughter 
than  our  daughter  herself  thought  fit  to  look.  Of 
course  my  position  in  the  Government — well,  some 
people  have  been  flattering  enough  to  say  that  I  may 
look  for  a  place  in  the  Cabinet  when  the  next  change 
takes  place,  and  between  ourselves,  I  think  a  change 
is  imminent.  Never  mind  that.  I  know  that  Clif- 
ton is  a  rising  man ;  he  has  been  a  power  in  our 
camp  for  several  years  past  and  his  advice  is  esteemed 
in — I  have  reason  to  know — the  highest — the  very 
highest  quarters.  In  fact  if  he  had  not  made  himself 
so  very  useful  as  to  become  almost  indispensable  he 
would  long  ago  have  been  provided  with  a  Seat  and  a 
post.  He  is  by  no  means  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder. 
He  is  a  man  who  has  made  a  successful  fight  against 
the  most  adverse  influences — he  knows  his  own 
strength — he  still  knows  it — he  does  not  fritter  away 
his  chances,  taking  up  one  thing  and  then  dropping  it 
for  another.  Men  of  his  stamp  are  the  men  to  suc- 
ceed. Your  future,  my  child,  is,  I  know,  safe  in  his 
keeping — oh,  quite  safe.  You  have  shown  your  wis- 
dom in  your  choice.  God  bless  you,  my  dear,  God 
bless  you  !  " 

The  paternal  kiss  was  this  time  impressed  upon  her 
forehead  with  a  paternal  smile,  and  she  could  say  noth- 
ing. The  futility  of  saying  anything  was  impressed 
upon  her  with  each  of  the  two  paternal  kisses.  The 
next  moment  she  was  left  alone,  and  her  most  promi- 
nent thought  was  that  he  had  spoken  so  convincingly 


250  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

as  to  leave  no  opening  for  any  one  to  say  a  single 
word. 

And  yet,  only  two  hours  before,  she  had  been 
kissed  on  the  cheeks  and  on  the  hair  by  Pierce  Win- 
wood  ! 

The  result  of  her  father's  words  was  to  make  her 
feel  far  more  deeply  than  she  had  yet  felt  that  she  had 
been  guilty  of  something  dreadful  in  the  way  of 
double-dealing  when  she  had  allowed  Pierce  Winwood 
to  kiss  her — even  if  she  had  allowed  him  to  kiss  only 
one  of  her  hands  she  would  have  been  guilty  (she  now 
felt)  of  something  almost  shocking.  Breathing  as  she 
now  did,  in  the  centre  of  the  paternal  halo  of  her 
father's  phrases,  she  could  not  but  feel  shocked  as  she 
reflected  upon  her  frankness  in  confessing  (in  the 
breathing  spaces  between  his  kisses)  her  love  for  Pierce 
Winwood,  and  before  she  met  her  mother  she  was 
actually  thinking  what  reparation  she  could  make  to 
her  parents  for  her  shocking  conduct.  Would  an  at- 
titude of  complete  submission  to  their  wishes  be  suf- 
ficient, she  asked  herself. 

She  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would  not  be  an 
excessive  atonement  to  make  for  so  terrible  a  lapse 
from  the  conduct  which  was  expected  from  her.  It 
certainly  would  not,  for  her  father  had  given  her  to 
understand  that  he  had  only  been  induced  to  give  his 
consent  to  her  engagement  to  Ernest  Clifton,  because 
it  was  clearly  her  dearest  hope  to  get  his  consent  to 
that  engagement.  How  absurd  then  was  her  thought 
that  there  was  any  atonement  in  an  attitude  of  sub- 


251 


mission  to  a  fate  which  her  parents  had  the  best  reasons 
for  believing  that  she  most  ardently  sought. 

And  thus  she  had  to  face  her  mother. 

The  maternal  halo  which  her  mother  welded  to  that 
of  her  father  formed  a  most  appropriate  decoration, 
any  connoisseur  of  phrases  would  have  admitted.  It 
was  mat  gilt  with  a  burnished  bit  of  repousse  here  and 
there  along  the  border.  But  the  double  halo,  though 
decorative  enough,  was  too  heavy  for  Josephine's  head 
and  its  weight  oppressed  her. 

Her  mother  was  a  charming  woman.  She  had  not 
reached  that  period  of  humiliation  in  the  life  of  a 
woman  of  the  world  when  she  hears  people  say  that 
she  is  a  charming  woman  still.  No  one  ever  thought 
of  saying  that  she  was  a  charming  woman  still. 
Growing  old  has  gone  out,  for  it  has  become  acknowl- 
edged that  the  custon  of  a  woman's  doing  her  best  to 
look  hideous  with  caps  and  combs  and  things  when 
she  gets  married  is  allied  to  the  Suttee;  and  Lady 
Gwendolen  West — she  was  the  fifth  daughter  of  the 
late  Earl  of  Innisfallen  in  the  peerage  of  Ireland — 
was  one  of  the  leaders  of  modern  intelligence  who 
had  made  this  discovery  in  the  science  of  comparative 
superstition.  By  the  aid  of  a  confidential  masseuse  and 
an  hour's  sleep  before  lunch  and  dinner  every  day  of 
her  life,  she  remained  worldly  at  forty-six. 

She  kissed  her  daughter  with  a  subtle  discrimination 
of  what  her  daughter  expected  of  her  and  gave  her 
her  blessing. 

"  You  are  a  wicked  child,"  was  the  opening  bar  of 


252  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

the  maternal  benediction.  "  How  wicked  you  have 
been  ! — absolutely  naughty :  you  know  you  cannot 
deny  it,  you  sweet  thing.  And  you  make  me  look  a 
hundred,  you  know,  especially  when  I  have  anything 
of  mauve  about  me.  Thank  heaven,  I  am  not  as 
other  women  who  make  up  with  that  absurd  mauve 
complexion  and  think  that  it  deceives  any  one.  What 
would  you  think  of  your  mother,  Joe,  if  she  made  up 
like  those  poor  things  one  meets  even  at  the  best 
houses,  though  I  do  think  that  you  might  have  let  me 
into  your  confidence,  Joe — I  do  really.  You  know 
that  I  should  have  been  delighted  to  take  your  part 
against  your  father  any  day.  I  see  you  looking  at  my 
new  tocque,  but  if  you  say  that  the  pink  and  crimson 
poppies  do  not  look  well  among  the  corn  ears  I'll  have 
nothing  more  to  do  with  you  or  your  affairs.  Now 
what  on  earth  are  you  staring  at,  Joe  ?  Isn't  it  quite 

natural  for  corn  and  poppies " 

"  It's  wheat — wheat,"  said  Josephine,  and  still  she 
kept  her  eyes  fixed  upon  the  headdress  of  her  mother. 
("  Only  two  hours  ago — only  two  hours  ago.'") 
"  And  where's  the  difference  between  wheat  and 
corn,  you  little  quibbler  ? "  laughed  Lady  Gwen. 
"  You  didn't  know  that  I  had  ordered  the  tocque  from 
Madame  Sophy.  I  kept  it  a  secret  from  you  in  order 
to  surprise  you.  But  it  hasn't  surprised  you  after  all. 
Now  what  was  I  saying  apropos  of  secrets  just  now  ? 
— something  about — of  course,  I  knew  that  we  had 
been  talking  of  secrets.  You  were  very  naughty,  you 
sly  puss,  and  you  don't  deserve  to  be  forgiven  ;  but 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  253 

Mr.  Clifton — I  suppose  I  must  call  him  Ernest  now 
— how  funny  it  will  be ! — he's  one  of  the  most  com- 
ing men — he's  awfully  coming.  Your  father  agreed 
with  surprising  ease.  I  expect  that  some  one  turned 
him  against  the  notion  that  he  had  that  Lord  Lull- 
worth  would  have  suited  you.  Lord  Lully  is  no  fool, 
as  I  happen  to  know ;  so  perhaps  things  are  just  as 
well  as  they  are,  though  I  know  your  father  thought 
that,  with  you  married  to  the  son  of  the  Minister,  he 
was  pretty  sure  of  getting  into  the  Cabinet.  I  met 
Lord  Lully  only  yesterday  and  he  asked  me  how  it 
had  never  occurred  to  some  of  the  men  who  do  the 
caricatures  in  the  papers  to  draw  the  Marquis  in  the 
character  of  a  job-master.  Funny,  wasn't  it  ?  A  bit 
disrespectful  of  course ;  but  then  everybody  knows 
that  the  Marquis  has  done  very  well  for  all  his  rela- 
tions and  his  relations'  relations.  Good  heavens,  is 
that  four  o'clock  striking  ?  Hurry  upstairs  and  get 
Madeline  to  put  you  into  another  dress.  We  are 
going  to  the  Glastonburys'  reception  in  Hyde  Park 
Gate.  The  Green  Scandinavian  are  to  be  there. 
Make  haste.  We  have  two  other  places  of  call." 

What  was  she  to  say  to  such  a  mother  ?  How 
could  she  hope  for  sympathy  from  such  a  source  ? 
How  could  she  tell  Lady  Gwendolen  that  she  had 
changed  her  mind — that  she  loved  not  Ernest  Clifton 
but  Pierce  Winwood  ? 

That  was  the  terrible  part  of  this  greeting  of  her 
parents  :  they  took  everything  for  granted ;  they  as- 
sumed that  her  dearest  wish  was  to  obtain  their  con- 


254  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

sent  to  be  engaged  with  Mr.  Clifton,  though  it  did 
not  look  very  much  as  if  they  expected  her  to  be  ex- 
uberant in  her  gratitude  to  them  for  their  complaisance. 
She  had  been  deadly  cold  while  her  father  had  spoken 
to  her,  and  she  had  not  warmed  in  the  least  under  the 
influence  of  her  mother's  chatter.  Was  this  the  way 
in  which  girls  as  a  rule  deport  themselves  when  the 
happiest  hour  of  their  life  has  come  ? 

"  I  am  not  going  out  this  afternoon,"  she  said  when 
her  mother  had  turned  to  a  mirror  to  pinch  some  fancied 
improvement  in  the  poppies  that  flared  over  her  tocque. 

"  What  nonsense  are  you  talking  ? "  cried  Lady 
Gwen  pinching  away.  "  What  nonsense !  These 
things  should  be  bordered  with  wire  ;  they  fall  out  of 
shape  in  a  day.  Is  that  an  improvement  ?  "  . 

She  faced  her  daughter,  and  Joe  said : 

"  I  somehow  think  that  it  was  best  lying  flat.  No, 
I'm  not  going  out  this  afternoon.  I  am  deadly  tired." 

"  You  do  look  a  bit  blowsy,"  said  the  mother  with 
a  critical  poise  of  the  inverted  flower-basket  on  her 
head.  Then,  as  if  a  sudden  thought  had  struck  her, 
she  added,  while  Josephine  was  going  to  the  door: 
"  Don't  you  run  away  with  the  notion  that  he  is 
likely  to  drop  in  this  afternoon  upon  you.  The 
chances  are  that  he  will  be  at  the  Oppenkirks',  so 
your  best  chance  will  be  to  come  with  me." 

u  I  have  no  wish  to  see  anybody  this  evening — 
least  of  all  Mr.  Clifton.  I'm  only  tired  to  death," 
said  Josephine. 

Her  mother's  laugh  followed  her  to  the  staircase. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

SHE  threw  herself  upon  the  sofa  in  her  boudoir 
and  tried  to  face  the  situation  which  presented  itself 
to  her.  She  tried  to  think  what  she  could  do  to 
escape  from  the  toils  which  had  been  woven  round 
her — woven  with  the  appropriate  phrases  that  went 
to  the  declaring  of  a  father's  blessing,  and  the  frivo- 
lous inconsequence  of  a  mother's  acquiescence. 

She  felt  for  a  moment  as  if  she  were  a  prisoner  in 
a  strong  room,  with  bars  across  the  windows  and 
bolts  upon  the  door.  She  looked,  as  an  imprisoned 
girl  might,  first  to  the  door  then  to  the  windows,  as 
if  she  had  a  hope  that,  by  some  accidental  neglect  of 
precaution  on  the  part  of  her  gaoler  a  chance  might 
be  left  for  her  of  escape  one  way  or  another. 

She  threw  back  her  head  and  stared  at  the  ceiling. 
She  felt  that  she  had  no  chance.  The  door  had  its 
bolts  drawn  and  no  one  of  the  bars  across  the  window 
was  defective.  She  was  a  prisoner  without  means  of 
escape. 

She  felt  hopeless  facing  such  cleverness  as  that 
which  Ernest  Clifton  had  shown  her  he  had  at  his 
command.  A  fortnight  ago  he  had  given  her  to 
understand  that  he  considered  it  beyond  the  bounds 
of  possibility  that  he  should  obtain  the  consent  of  her 
father  to  their  engagement — he  had  certainly  had  no 
hope  of  winning  her  father's  consent  for  if  he  had 
255 


256  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

had  such  a  hope  he  would  only  have  required  to  tell 
her  so  when  she  had  met  him  at  that  garden  party, 
and  had  asked  him  to  free  her  from  her  promise  made 
to  him  in  the  autumn.  Yes,  all  he  need  have  said 
was  this : 

"  I  am  going  to  run  the  chance  of  getting  your 
father's  consent,  and  if  I  am  not  successful  we  can 
then  talk  as  you  are  talking,  of  throwing  over  our 
compact." 

That  was  all  he  need  have  said,  if  he  had  had  any  ex- 
pectation of  winning  over  her  father ;  but  he  had 
said  nothing  of  the  sort ;  and  yet  he  had,  by  his  own 
cleverness — by  some  mystery  of  adroitness  of  which 
she  was  ignorant — by  some  strange  trick — she  was 
sure  it  was  a  trick,  though  she  knew  nothing  about 
it — gained  the  acquiescence  of  her  father  in  their 
compact,  and  his  cheerful  forgiveness  for  the  decep- 
tion of  the  past. 

What  could  she  do  in  the  face  of  such  cleverness 
as  this  ?  How  could  she  hope  to  combat  it  ?  Would 
it  not  be  ridiculous  for  such  a  girl  as  she  to  strive 
against  such  a  man  as  he  ?  Would  it  not  be  better 
for  her  to  submit  to  the  inevitable  with  good  grace  ? 

But  had  she  not  already  submitted  to  it  ?  She  had 
been  dumb  in  the  presence  of  her  father,  so  over- 
whelmed as  she  was  with  surprise  at  the  first  words 
of  the  announcement  of  his  forgiveness ;  and  she  had 
thus  given  him  to  understand  that  she  was  extremely 
grateful — grateful  to  a  point  of  complete  extinction 
of  the  power  of  expressing  her  gratitude — to  him  for 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  257 

his  more  than  fatherly  appreciation  of  her  dearest 
hopes.  And  as  for  her  mother — she  had  allowed  her 
mother  to  go  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  she  was  pre- 
tending to  be  tired  in  order  to  be  at  home  if  her 
lover — her  lover — were  to  call. 

Well,  she  had  made  a  fool  of  herself — so  much 
was  certain.  That  secret  engagement  was  an  act  of 
folly  that  had  to  be  paid  for.  It  seemed  as  if  no 
power  was  strong  enough  to  show  her  how  she  could 
evade  the  supreme  penalty  which  that  act  carried 
with  it.  Yes,  she  had  undoubtedly  made  a  fool  of 
herself. 

And  then  the  thought  came  to  her  that  she  had  not 
only  made  a  fool  of  herself,  she  had  also  made  a  fool 
of  Pierce  Winwood.  This  reflection  was  too  much 
for  her.  She  turned  her  face  to  a  pillow  and  wept 
silently  into  its  depths. 

This  was  the  second  time  she  had  been  moved  to 
tears  since  the  morning,  and  it  was  the  memory  of 
the  incident  of  her  first  tears  that  caused  her  to  weep 
the  more  piteously  now.  By  a  strange  inconsistency 
it  was  this  same  memory  that  caused  her  to  leap  to 
her  feet  after  an  interval  of  silent  sobbing,  and  to  toss 
away  her  second  handkerchief  just  as  she  had  done 
her  first  and  then  to  strike  the  palms  of  her  hands 
together  crying  aloud : 

"  I  will  face  them  all — I  will  face  them  all.  1  am 
not  afraid  of  any  of  them.  I  know  my  own  mind 
now — now.  I  don't  care  whether  I  have  behaved 
honourably  or  basely  or  idiotically.  I  love  one  man 


258  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

and  that  man  I  mean  to  marry.  That's  enough  for 
me." 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  she  sat  down  in  front  of 
her  escritoire  and  flung  the  ink  upon  a  sheet  of  paper 
to  the  effect  that  if  Dear  Mr.  Clifton  would  have  the 
kindness  to  pay  her  a  visit  on  the  following  afternoon 
she  would  be  glad.  She  thumped  the  scrawl  when 
face  downward  on  the  blotter,  as  good-natured  people 
thump  the  back  of  a  child  that  has  swallowed  a  fish- 
bone. It  was  a  great  satisfaction  to  her  to  pound 
away  at  it ;  and  when  she  picked  it  up  she  saw  that 
the  blotting  paper,  which  had  been  spotless  before 
was  now  black.  The  face  of  the  letter  was  also 
smudged,  the  absorbent  not  having  been  rapid  enough 
in  its  action.  But  she  knew  that  not  only  would  the 
lines  be  deciphered  by  the  man  to  whom  they  were 
addressed,  he  would  also  be  made  to  understand 
something  of  the  mood  she  was  in  when  she  had  made 
that  cavalry  charge  upon  the  paper  using  her  broadest 
quill  as  a  lance. 

She  gave  a  sigh  of  relief  when  she  saw  the  envelope 
with  the  letter  inside,  lying  on  the  table  beside  her ; 
and  then  she  wrote  the  date  on  another  sheet  of 
paper.  The  second  letter,  however,  seemed  to  re- 
quire more  careful  composition  than  the  first.  She 
sat  looking  wistfully  at  the  blank  paper  for  more  than 
half  an  hour,  without  making  sufficient  progress  to 
write  the  name  of  the  one  whom  the  post  office 
authorities  call  the  addressee.  She  leant  back  in  her 
chair  and  bit  at  the  feather  end  of  the  pen  for  a  long 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  259 

time.  At  last  she  tore  up  the  sheet  of  paper  and 
dropped  the  fragments  with  great  tenderness  into  the 
Dresden  vase  that  stood  on  a  carved  bracket  on  the 
wall. 

"  I  will  not  spoil  his  day,"  she  said  pathetically. 
"  I  may  have  a  good  deal  more  to  tell  him  by  this 
time  to-morrow.  But  I  am  not  afraid  to  face  any- 
thing that  may  come  to  pass.  I  know  my  own  mind 
now — now." 

Her  maid  came  to  enquire  if  she  was  at  home,  and 
if  she  would  have  tea  in  her  boudoir  or  in  one  of  the 
drawing-rooms.  She  replied  that  she  was  not  at 
home  and  that  she  would  like  her  tea  brought  to  her 
at  once. 

This  was  done  and  she  found  herself  greatly  re- 
freshed, and  able  to  enjoy  an  hour's  sleep  before  din- 
ner, and  to  hear  during  that  meal,  her  mother's  ac- 
count of  the  two  entertainments  at  which  she  had 
assisted,  with  a  detailed  description  of  some  of  the 
most  innocuous  of  the  dresses  worn  by  the  heroines  of 
the  lady  correspondents'  columns.  A  word  or  two 
Lady  Gwendolen  threw  in  about  the  less  interesting 
subject  of  the  men  who  had  walked  through  the 
garden  of  the  Hyde  Park  Gate  house,  with  the  usual 
mournfulness  of  the  men  among  five  o'clock  ices  and 
angel-cakes,  failed  to  move  Josephine. 

"  You  should  have  been  there,  Joe,"  said  the 
mother  when  the  servants  had  left  the  dining-room, 
and  the  scent  of  fresh  peeled  peaches  was  in  the  air. 
"  I  told  you  that  it  was  quite  unlikely  that  your 


260  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

Ernest  would  call  to-day,  so  you  had  your  waiting  at 
home  for  nothing.  Amber  was  there  wearing  that 
ancient  thing  with  the  little  sprigs  of  violets — she 
must  have  had  that  since  May — but  I  think  the  hat 
was  new — do  you  know  it  ? — a  fearfully  broad  thing 
of  white  straw  with  a  droop  on  both  sides  and  two 
ostrich  feathers  lying  flat,  one  failing  over  the  brim 
and  coiling  underneath,  and  who  is  the  latest  victim 
to  her  theories  of  training,  do  you  think?  Why, 
Lord  Lully  himself.  She  had  ices  with  him,  and  held 
on  to  him  with  grim  determination  for  half  an  hour, 
though  he  told  me  last  week  that  he  would  be  there 
and  I  saw  that  he  was  struggling  hard  to  get  away 
from  her,  poor  boy  !  But  if  she  fancies  that  Lord 
Lully  is  such  a  fool  as  the  rest  of  them,  she  is  going 
a  little  too  far.  I  happen  to  know  that  he  has  his 
eyes  open  just  as  wide  as  his  father  could  wish. 
Amber  will  make  nothing  of  him,  take  my  word  for 
it.  Theories  !  Experiments  !  Fiddlestrings  and  fid- 
dlesticks !  And  his  mother  was  quite  civil  to  her  too 
— almost  gracious,  only  that  we  know  that  she  never 
is  so  except  for  three  weeks  during  a  General  Elec- 
tion, and  she  takes  it  out  of  her  home  circle  when  it's 
all  over  and  she  need  be  civil  no  longer.  I  hope 
your  father  will  get  into  the  Cabinet  and  so  relieve 
me  from  the  General  Election  smile.  I  smiled  him 
through  three  General  Elections,  but  I  decline  to  face 
a  fourth.  Why  should  an  Under  Secretary's  wife  be 
supposed  to  make  a  Cheshire  Cat  of  herself  when  the 
wife  of  a  Cabinet  Minister  need  only  be  civil  ?  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  261 

This  and  several  other  social  problems  were  formu- 
lated by  Lady  Gwendolen  for  the  consideration  of  her 
daughter  while  they  ate  their  peaches,  and  then  they 
had  an  interval  to  themselves  before  dressing  for  a 
very  Small  Dance  at  a  very  great  house,  following  an 
Official  Reception. 

An  Official  Reception  means  a  scuffle  in  a  hall,  a 
scramble  on  a  staircase  and  a  scamper  past  a  whiff  of 
scent.  That's  an  Official  Reception. 

Josephine  danced  eleven  dances  at  the  Small  Dance 
and  would  have  gone  on  to  the  fifteenth  only  that  she 
had  the  responsibility  of  chaperoning  her  mother. 
She  knew  that  her  mother  could  not  stand  late  hours, 
so  she  tpok  her  home  (reluctantly)  at  two. 

At  four  o'clock  the  following  afternoon  Ernest 
Clifton  made  his  call,  and  Josephine  received  him 
alone. 

"  At  last — at  last !  "  he  cried  in  a  very  creditable 
imitation  of  the  lover's  exaltation,  when  they  were 
alone.  He  had  approached  her  with  outstretched 
hands.  His  voice  was  tremulous. 

She  did  not  allow  him  to  put  even  one  arm  around 
her.  He  was  showing  an  aspiration  in  regard  to  the 
employment  of  both. 

"  I  wrote  to  you  to  come  here  to-day  in  order  to 
tell  you  that — that — "  she  paused.  She  did  not 
know  what  she  had  to  tell  him.  Was  it  that  she  con- 
sidered that  he  had  tricked  her  into  an  acceptance  of 
the  terms  on  which  he  had  granted  her  petition 
for  liberty  ?  Was  it  that  she  had  merely  changed  her 


262  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

mind  in  regard  to  him  ?  "  I  wish  to  tell  you  that — 
that  you  must  have  misunderstood — I  cannot  tell  how 
— the  effect  of  the  letter  which  I  wrote  to  you — of 
the  explanation  I  made  to  you  the  last  time  we  met." 

"  Good  heavens !  what  can  you  possibly  mean,  my 
Josephine  ?  "  said  he  in  a  maelstrom  of  astonishment ; 
but  she  thought  she  could  detect  an  artificial  gesture 
for  all  the  swirl :  the  whirlpool  was  a  machine  made 
one.  "  Good  heavens  !  where  was  the  possibility  of 
a  mistake  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  replied.  "  I  meant  to  be 
clear  enough.  I  told  you  that  I  wanted  to  be  freed 
from  the  consequences  of  our  engagement ;  you  freed 
me,  and  yet  a  few  days  later,  you  go  to  my  father  and 
tell  him  that  all  we  want  is  his  sanction  for  our  en- 
gagement— our  engagement  that  was  annulled  some 
time  before." 

"  What,"  he  cried,  "  can  you  forget  that  the  only 
reason  you  put  forward  for  wishing  to  be  free — 
nominally  free — was  that  you  felt  uneasy  at  the  secrecy 
of  our  engagement  ?  You  said  you  felt  as  if  you 
were  guilty  of  double-dealing  because  your  father  had 
not  given  his  consent — you  said  all  this,  my  dearest, 
the  last  time  we  met,  and  your  saying  so — your  feel- 
ing so — filled  me  with  remorse — the  deepest  remorse 
— the  intensest  self-reproach.  I  had  caused  you  to 
suffer,  and  what  more  natural  than  that  I  make  the 
attempt  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  to  atone  for 
what  I  had  done — to  remove  the  one  cause  of  your 
suffering  ?  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  risk  all 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  263 

to  save  you  from  further  self-reproach.  I  took  my 
life  in  my  hand,  so  to  speak — I  risked  all  on  a  simple 
cast  for  your  sake — I  went  to  your  father  .  .  . 
well,  by  giving  his  consent  he  withdrew  the  cause — 
the  very  reasonable  cause,  I  admit  of  your — your  un- 
easiness. Surely  you  remember  ?  " 

"  I  remember  everything,"  she  said.  "  I  asked  you 
to  free  me — to  release  me  from  the  promise  I  had 
made  to  you  and  you  released  me." 

"  You  place  too  great  emphasis  on  my  simple  act," 
said  he.  "  What  man  worthy  of  the  name  of  man 
would  have  been  less  generous  than  I  was  ?  Could 
I  forget  that  you  had  suffered  on  my  account  ?  Oh, 
my  Josephine,  I  could  not  but  release  you  from  your 
promise — your  promise  of  secrecy.  But  I  trusted 
you — I  knew  I  could  trust  you." 

She  perceived  in  a  moment  the  position  in  which 
he  meant  to  place  her. 

"  But  it  was  not  from  my  promise  of  secrecy  that 
I  begged  you  to  free  me,"  she  said ;  "  it  was  from  my 
engagement — I  wished  to  be  free  altogether,  and  you 
agreed.  I  was  free  when  we  parted.  I  did  not  con- 
sider myself  bound  to  you  in  any  way." 

"  What  ?  ah,  my  dear  Josephine,  you  are  some- 
thing of  a  sophist.  Just  think  for  a  moment  and  you 
will  see  how  impossible  it  was  for  me  to  accept  what 
you  said  in  the  sense  in  which  you  now  say  you 
meant  it.  You  told  me  that  the  one  reason — the  sole 
reason  you  had  for  writing  to  me  as  you  wrote,  and 
for  appealing  to  me  as  you  did,  was  the  fact  that  the 


264  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

secrecy — the  secret — the  secret  that  you  shared  with 
me  was  preying  on  your  mind.  Well,  that  sole 
reason  is  now  removed,  therefore — oh,  the  thing  is 
simplicity  itself." 

"  That  is  perfectly  plausible,"  said  she,  after  a  long 
interval.  She  saw  without  difficulty  that  he  had  logic 
and  reason  on  his  side.  That  made  her  feel  a  greater 
antipathy  to  him  than  she  had  yet  felt :  a  woman 
hates  the  man  who  has  proved  himself  to  be  in  the 
right.  "  Yes,  it  is  perfectly  plausible,  but — but — you 
did  not  tell  me  that  you  intended  coming  to  my  father." 

"  And  you  did  not  know  enough  of  my  character 
to  know  that  the  first  step  I  should  take  after  hearing 
from  your  lips  that  the  fact  of  our  engagement  being 
kept  from  him  was  causing  you  pain,  would  be  to  go 
to  your  father  ?  " 

There  was  more  than  a  suggestion  of  reproach  in 
his  voice  :  there  was  pain. 

"  I  did  not  know  enough  of  your  character,"  she 
said.  "  And  so  I  considered  myself  free — altogether 
free.  No  engagement  existed  between  us  when  we 
parted  last." 

"  Although  my  last  words  to  you  were  that  I  knew 
I  could  trust  you  ?  Did  not  those  words  suggest  to 
you  that  you  had  not  made  your  meaning  plain  to  me 
— that  I  at  least  had  no  feeling  that  our  engagement 
was  at  an  end  ?  " 

"  I  felt  that — that  you  were  setting  me  free  with 
one  phrase  and  trying  to  bind  me  faster  than  before 
with  another  phrase,"  she  replied. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  265 

"  But  you  made  no  protest.  You  tacitly  admitted 
that  I  was  entitled  to  accept  your  meaning  as  I  did." 

"  You  did  not  give  me  a  chance.  You  turned 
away  to  speak  to  some  one  who  came  up  at  that  mo- 
ment." 

"What  would  you  have  said  to  me  if  you  had  had 
the  chance  ?  "  he  asked  her  slowly. 

She  hesitated. 

"  Oh,  do  not  trouble  yourself  thinking  for  an  an- 
swer," he  cried.  "What  is  the  good  of  discussing  in 
this  way  the — diplomatists  call  it  the  status  quo  ante? 
Such  a  discussion  is  quite  profitless.  Even  if  we 
were  not  engaged  then  we  are  now.  The  obstacle 
has  been  removed." 

She  felt  overcome  by  the  plausibility  of  it  all,  just 
as  she  had  felt  overcome  in  the  presence  of  her  father 
by  a  sense  of  the  inevitable.  It  was  not  surprising 
that  he  accepted  the  long  pause  on  her  part  as  indi- 
cating complete  surrender  to  his  reasoning.  He  went 
towards  her  with  a  smile  and  outstretched  hands. 

"  Do  not  come  to  me  :  I  love  another  man  and  I 
mean  to  marry  him — I  shall  never  marry  you,"  she 
said  quietly. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

So  she  had  abandoned  the  untenable  position  of 
reason,  and  had  withdrawn  to  the  cover  of  a  state- 
ment of  complete  femininity.  She  gave  a  sigh  of  re- 
lief: she  knew  where  she  was  now.  She  was  on 
firm  ground. 

"  I  am  afraid,  Josephine,"  said  he  with  the  utmost 
calmness,  "  that  you  have  been  too  late  in  coming  to 
this  determination.  You  cannot  be  so  flagrantly  in- 
consistent." 

41 1  know  nothing  about  consistency  or  inconsist- 
ency ;  I  love  another  man,  and  all  the  arguments  in 
the  world  will  not  prevent  my  loving  him." 

She  knew  where  she  stood  now.  Her  position  was 
impregnable. 

"  You  say  that  you  broke  off  your  engagement  with 
me.  Why  ?  Because  I  had  not  got  your  father's 
consent.  Well,  if  the  absence  of  your  father's  con- 
sent was  a  legitimate  reason  for  our  engagement  com- 
ing to  an  end  it  is  certainly  a  reason  for  your  refrain- 
ing from  entering  into  an  engagement  with  another 
man,  for  your  father  cannot  give  his  consent  to  two 
men  at  the  same  time.  You  see  that  you  cannot 
possibly — as  you  are  showing — be  engaged  to  any  one 
but  myself." 

"  I  told  you  I  care  nothing  for  consistency — or 
266 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  267 

reason — or  logic — or — or — you.  I  love  another  man 
— I  love  another  man." 

"  I  am  sorry  for  you,  dear  Josephine.  But  if  you 
do  not  care  anything  for  consistency  and  me,  I  care 
for  consistency  and  you  far  too  much  to  relinquish 
either.  If  you  can  show  me  that  there  has  ever  been 
a  breach  in  our  engagement  I  might  be  led  to  con- 
sider the  situation  from  another  standpoint.  Look  at 
me  and  tell  me  that  you  understood  clearly  when  we 
parted  last  that  you  were  free — that  there  was  no  un- 
easy feeling  in  your  mind  that  you  were  still  bound  to 
me.  .  .  .  You  see,  you  cannot.  You  are  silent. 
Yes,  my  dearest,  there  was  a  bond  between  us  when 
we  separated,  and  you  and  I  are  engaged  now,  as  we 
have  been  for  several  months,  and  your  father  and 
mother  take  exactly  the  same  view  of  our  position, 
and  are  good  enough  to  sanction  it.  That  is  enough 
for  me ;  it  should  be  enough  for  you.  I  decline  to 
take  any  other  view  of  the  matter.  You  have  ad- 
mitted tacitly — that  I  never  released  you.  I  decline 
to  release  you  now.  Of  course  you  will  accept  the 
situation.  Think  over  it  and  you  will  find  that  no 
alternative  remains.  Good-bye,  my  dear — for  the 
present." 

He  did  not  ask  her  to  give  him  her  hand ;  but  sim- 
ply moved  smiling,  to  the  door  with  a  wave  of  his  own 
hand  that  somehow  produced  upon  her  the  effect  of 
shaking  hands  with  her — at  any  rate  that  graceful 
gesture  rendered  a  parting  salute  unnecessary,  without 
the  slightest  suggestion  of  a  breach  of  courtesy. 


268  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

He  was  gone,  and  he  had  got  the  better  of  her — 
that  was  her  first  impression  when  he  had  closed  the 
door — very  gently — behind  him.  He  had  been  too 
clever  for  her.  She  knew  long  ago  that  it  would  be 
ridiculous  for  her  to  hope  to  get  the  better  of  him. 

And  the  worst  of  it  was  that  he  was  altogether  in 
the  right.  He  was  hopelessly  in  the  right.  She  had 
treated  him  badly.  She  had  behaved  dishonestly, 
whatever  Pierce  Winwood  might  say  by  way  of  ex- 
culpating her:  she  had  parted  from  Ernest  Clifton 
feeling — she  could  not  deny  it  face  to  face  with  him — 
bound  to  him,  and  she  could  not  but  acknowledge  that 
until  she  had  a  complete  understanding  with  him,  she 
had  no  right  to  listen  to  a  word  of  love  to  another  man. 

She  had  behaved  basely — there  could  be  no  doubt 
about  that,  and  the  only  excuse — and  she  knew  that 
it  was  no  excuse — that  she  could  make  for  herself 
was  that  Pierce  Winwood  had  come  upon  her  so  sud- 
denly— so  unexpectedly  that  she  had  no  chance  of 
giving  due  consideration  to  the  question  as  to  whether 
or  not  she  would  be  justified  in  listening  to  him. 
The  idea  of  her  pausing  at  such  a  moment  to  deter- 
mine whether  or  not  Pierce  Winwood  had  what  law- 
yers term  a  locus  standi  in  the  suit  did  not  strike  her 
as  being  at  all  funny.  She  felt  that  she  should  have 
adopted  something  of  a  judicial  attitude  in  regard  to 
Pierce.  She  could  not  understand  how  it  was  that 
she  had  had  that  moment  of  recklessness — that  mo- 
ment of  recklessness  which  remains  a  mystery  to  so 
many  women. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  269 

And  the  result  of  all  this  after  consideration  of  the 
matter  was  to  convince  her  that  she  had  been  des- 
perately in  the  wrong — deceiving  every  one  around 
her  and  trying  to  deceive  herself  also  from  the  very 
first;  for  knowing  the  impression  that  Pierce  had 
produced  on  her  upon  the  occasion  of  their  first 
meeting  at  Ranelagh,  she  had  not  refused  to  meet 
him  again  as  she  should  have  done.  She  had  told 
Amber  that  she  hated  him ;  but  she  knew  perfectly 
well  that  why  she  hated  him  was  because  he  had 
compelled  her  to  love  him.  It  was  not  he  whom  she 
hated  but  only  the  idea  of  acting  dishonourably  in 
regard  to  the  man  whom  she  had  promised  to  marry. 

Oh,  she  knew  all  along  but  too  well  that  she  loved 
him  from  the  first,  and  yet  she  had  not — after  the 
first  week — taken  the  least  trouble  to  keep  apart  from 
him,  the  result  being  the  feeling  of  humiliation  that 
now  had  taken  possession  of  her — this  feeling  that 
she  had  been  so  dreadfully  in  the  wrong  that  nothing 
remained  for  her  but  to  plunge  still  deeper  into  the 
depths  of  wickedness  by  agreeing  to  marry  the  man 
whom  she  did  not  love  and  to  throw  over  the  man 
she  did  love. 

She  felt  that  Ernest  Clifton  had  spoken  the  truth. 
No  alternative  remained  to  her.  She  had  agreed  with 
her  eyes  open,  to  marry  him,  and  she  was  quite  un- 
able to  give  any  reason  that  would  be  considered 
satisfactory  by  her  father  for  declining  to  marry  him. 

After  an  hour  or  two  she  actually  became  resigned 
to  the  idea.  After  all,  what  did  it  matter  ?  She  had 


270  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

got  into  the  frame  of  mind  of  the  one  who  asks  this 
question.  The  frame  of  mind  of  the  French  philos- 
opher on  the  guillotine,  who  rolled  his  cigarette,  say- 
ing "  N'importe  :  un  homme  de  mois  !  " 

What  did  it  matter  whom  she  married  ?  The  gen- 
eral scheme  of  the  universe  would  not  be  interfered 
with  because  she  was  about  to  do  the  thing  that  was 
most  abhorrent  to  her  of  all  acts  done  by  women — 
this  act  being,  by  the  way,  the  one  which  she  was 
most  earnest  to  do  only  six  months  before ! 

She  was  able,  without  the  shedding  of  a  tear,  to  sit 
down  to  her  escritoire  and  write  a  letter  to  Pierce, 
letting  him  know  the  determination  to  which  she  had 
come,  and  admitting  to  him  that  she  had  behaved 
basely — cruelly — inconsiderately.  She  had  been  bound 
to  Mr.  Clifton — and  she  knew  it — at  the  very  mo- 
ment that  she  had  acknowledged  to  the  man  to  whom 
she  was  writing  that  she  loved  him.  She  admitted 
how  culpably  weak  she  had  been — and  still  was,  but 
she  thought  that  she  was  strong  enough  to  see  that 
the  best  way — the  only  way — of  sparing  the  one  who 
was  dearest  to  her  much  misery — the  only  way  of 
escaping  from  a  hopeless  position  was  by  submitting 
to  Fate.  If  he  would  think  over  the  matter  he  would, 
she  was  sure,  see  that  she  was  right,  and  thinking  over 
it  all  he  could  not  but  be  thankful  that  he  was  saved 
from  a  wretched  woman  who  did  not  know  her  own 
mind  two  days  together  and  who  had  no  sense  of 
honour  or  truth  or  fidelity. 

That  was  the  substance  of  the  letter  which  she  felt 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  271 

great  satisfaction  in  writing  to  Pierce  Winwood ;  and 
she  sincerely  believed  that  she  was  all  that  she  an- 
nounced herself  to  be,  though  she  would  have  been 
terribly  disappointed  if  she  had  thought  that  she  would 
succeed  in  convincing  him  that  she  was  unworthy  to 
be  loved  by  him. 

She  felt  greatly  relieved  on  writing  this  letter  em- 
bodying as  it  did  so  frank  a  confession  of  her  weak- 
ness and — incidentally — of  her  womanliness,  and  she 
was  able  to  dance  nine  dances  and  to  partake  of  a 
very  recherche  supper  in  the  course  of  the  night.  She 
felt  that  she  had  become  thoroughly  worldly,  taking  a 
pleasure  in  the  whirl  and  the  glow  and  the  glitter  of 
all.  There  was  no  chance  of  her  being  led  to  think 
about  what  lay  heavy  on  her  heart  while  she  was 
giving  herself  up  to  this  form  of  intoxication.  Every 
dance  had  the  effect  of  a  dram  of  green  Chartreuse 
upon  her,  and  the  result  of  her  night's  festivity  was 
to  make  her  feel,  she  thought,  that  the  world  was 
very  well  adapted  as  a  place  of  residence  for  men  and 
women ;  and  as  for  the  worldliness — well,  worldli- 
ness  was  one  of  the  pleasantest  elements  in  the  world 
of  men  and  women. 

Having  come  to  so  satisfactory  a  conclusion,  it  was 
somewhat  remarkable,  she  thought,  that,  on  finding 
her  father  drinking  his  glass  of  Apollinaris  in  his  study 
— he  had  just  returned  from  the  House — she  should  go 
straight  up  to  him,  after  shutting  the  door,  and  say, 

"  I  wish  to  say  to  you  that  I  do  not  wish  to  marry 
Ernest  Clifton,  because  I  love  quite  another  man." 


272  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

He  looked  at  her  curiously  for  a  few  moments, 
then  he  said,  laying  down  his  tumbler: 

"  What  stuff  is  this  ?  Is  it  not  true  that  you 
agreed  to  listen  to  Clifton  six  months  ago  ?  Heavens 
above  us  !  Another  man — quite  another  man  !  Have 
you  been  making  a  fool  of  Clifton  and — and  yourself, 
and  do  you  now  think  to  make  a  fool  of  me  ?  " 

"  I  am  ready  to  admit  everything,"  she  cried  plain- 
tively. "  I  have  been  a  fool,  I  know.  I  have  be- 
haved badly — with  no  sense  of  honour — basely — 
basely — but  I  am  wretched  and  I  will  not  marry 
Ernest  Clifton — oh,  nothing  will  force  me  to  marry 
him." 

"  Poor  child !  poor  child  !  It  is  quite  natural  this 
maidenly  shrinking !  "  said  the  father  smiling  like  a 
mulberry.  "  Bromide  of  potassium — that  will  steady 
you.  After  all,  you  are  not  going  to  be  married  to- 
morrow, nor  even  the  next  day.  Give  yourself  a 
night  off,  my  child.  Don't  let  your  mother  rush  you. 
It's  all  very  well  for  her.  At  her  age  women  can  do 
anything;  but  a  girl's  nerves " 

"  It  is  not  my  nerves — it  is — because  I  love  an- 
other man — and  I  mean  to  love  him.  I  cannot  help 
it — I  have  tried — God  knows — oh,  my  dear  father, 
you  will  pity  me — you  must  pity  me,  no  matter  how 
foolish  I  have  been." 

She  broke  down  and  would  have  thrown  herself 
into  his  arms  but  that  he  was  too  quick  for  her.  At 
the  first  suggestion  of  such  a  thing,  he  had  picked  up 
his  tumbler  half  full  of  Apollinaris.  That  saved 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  273 

him.  It  was  on  a  big  red  leather  chair  that  she  was 
sobbing,  not  on  his  shirt  front. 

"  Poor  child — poor  child,  poor — bromide,"  he  mur- 
mured. "  Tell  me  all  about  it,  my  Josephine — my 
little  Josephine.  I  have  had  a  busy  night  of  it  but  I 
can  give  five  minutes  to  the  troubles  of  my  little  girl." 

He  flattered  himself  that  he  was  acting  the  part  of 
the  father  to  a  quaver.  He  half  believed  that  she 
would  accept  his  representation  of  an  honourable 
character  without  misgiving.  What  could  she  know 
of  the  terms  of  the  contract  which  he  had  made — in 
the  most  delicate  way,  no  word  being  used  on  either 
side  to  which  exception  could  be  taken  by  a  sensitive 
person — with  Ernest  Clifton,  respecting  the  feeling 
of  the  ticklish  constituency  of  Arbroath  Burghs  ? 

She  lost  some  precious  moments  of  the  night  in 
sobbing.  But  though  her  father  did  not  know  very 
much  about  women  he  knew  enough  to  cause  him  to 
refrain  from  asking  her  to  come  to  the  point  upon 
which  she  was  anxious  to  talk  to  him.  Upstairs  the 
door  of  the  Lady  Gwendolen's  dressing-room  banged. 

"  Poor  little  Josey  ! "  said  the  father  smoothing  her 
hair.  He  felt  that  he  really  would  miss  her  when 
Clifton  had  married  her  and  he  had  got  his  seat  in  the 
Cabinet. 

She  looked  up. 

"  I  know  I  have  been  a  fool,  my  dear  father,"  she 
said.  "  But  I  love  another  man — not  Mr.  Clifton, 
and  I  will  not  marry  Mr.  Clifton." 

"  That  is  nonsense,  my  dear,"  said  he  in  a  pleasant, 


274  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

soothing  tone — the  tone  that  suggests  a  large  tolera- 
tion for  human  weaknesses,  especially  those  of  a  girl, 
because  so  few  of  them  are  worth  talking  about. 
"You  must  not  worry  yourself,  my  dear.  You  will 
have  worries  enough  when  you  are  married,  if  I  know 
anything  about  what  marriage  means.  Now  take  my 
advice  and  have  a  good  dose  of  bromide  and  get  into 
bed.  Don't  get  up  early.  Had  you  a  touch  of  the 
sun  when  you  were  up  the  river  ?  " 

"  He  will  not  listen  to  me  !  He  treats  me  as  if  I 
were  a  child — a  sick  child  !  "  cried  Josephine  piteously. 

The  reproach  annoyed  him. 

"  You  are  behaving  as  such,"  he  said.  "  I  am 
anxious  to  make  every  allowance  for  you,  but  when 
you  talk  in  this  wild  fashion — why  did  you  not  stop 
me  yesterday  when  I  told  you  that  I  had  given  my 
consent  to  your  engagement  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  know  what  to  say — I  was  overcome 
with  surprise." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  he — Clifton — left 
you  the  last  time  he  was  with  you  before  you  went  up 
the  river,  under  the  impression  that  you  and  he  were 
no  longer  engaged  ?  " 

"  I  cannot  say  what  his  impression  was — I  asked 
him  to  release  me  on  that  very  day." 

"  What  reason  did  you  put  forward  for  making  such 
a  request  ?  " 

u  I  said  that — that  I  felt  that  I  was  doing  wrong  in 
remaining  engaged  to  him  in  secret — without  your 
consent." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  275 

"You  were  quite  right.  But  you  see  I  have  re- 
moved the  cause — the  legitimate  cause  of  your  self- 
reproach.  The  consequence  is  that  you  are  engaged 
to  him,  if  I  know  anything  of  logic  and  reason." 

"  Oh,  logic  and  reason  !  I  am  only  a  woman,  God 
help  me  !  " 

"  My  dear  girl,  to  be  a  woman  is  to  be  a  very 
charming  thing,  if  a  bit  unreasonable  at  times.  You 
are  the  slaves  to  your  nerves.  And  these  days — what 
does  the  poet  say  ?  '  It  was  the  time  of  roses  ' — ah, 
neurosis,  he  would  have  written  to-day — c  and  we 
plucked  them  as  we  passed.'  " 

She  had  risen. 

"  I  am  going  to  bed,"  she  said.     "  Good-night." 

"  You  couldn't  do  better,  my  dear.  Good-night 
and  God  bless  you  !  Don't  neglect  the  bro — by  the 
way,  I  should  perhaps  mention  to  you  that  even  if  I 
were  inclined  to  accept  your  protest  now  it  would  be 
too  late — I  should  be  powerless  to  do  anything,  for 
the  announcement  is  already  gone  to  the  papers." 

"What — you  have  sent  it  to  the  papers  ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  have — that  is  to  say,  Clare  has  sent 
it."  (Julian  Clare  was  Mr.  West's  private  secretary.) 
"  It  was  necessary  for  it  to  appear  without  delay.  It 
will  increase  the  interest  in  your  father — there  is  al- 
ways a  sort  of  reflected  glory  upon  the  father  of  a 
beautiful  girl  who  is  about  to  be  married.  We  can- 
not fly  in  the  face  of  Providence  and  the  papers 
at  the  present  moment.  The  present  moment  is 
critical  for  the  house  of  West." 


276  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"You  are  going  into  the  Cabinet,"  she  said. 
"That  represents  the  highest  height  of  your  ambi- 
tion." 

"  It  is  one  of  the  peaks,  at  any  rate,"  said  he  smil- 
ing. "  It  is  high  enough  for  me.  Those  who  can- 
not get  to  the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc  must  be  con- 
tent with  the  humble  Monte  Rosa.  And  feeling  that 
your  future,  my  child,  is  assured,  I  shall  be  the  more 
content,  if — ah,  you  are  quite  right.  Good-night — 
good-night." 

She  went  upstairs  feeling  that  the  fight  with  Fate 
was  over.  What  would  be  the  use  of  struggling  any 
longer  against  what  was  plainly  the  decree  of  Fate  ? 
Fate  is  a  tough  antagonist  at  any  time,  but  when  Fate 
and  the  newspapers  are  pulling  together 

She  went  to  bed  without  saying  her  prayers. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

AMBER  SEVERN  read  the  announcement  in  one  of 
the  papers  the  next  morning  that  a  marriage  was  ar- 
ranged and  would  shortly  take  place  between  Mr. 
Ernest  Clifton,  fifth  son  of  the  late  Constantine 
Clifton  of  The  Elms,  Lynnthorpe,  Esq.,  and  Jo- 
sephine, only  daughter  of  the  Right  Honourable  J. 
Carew  West,  Under  Secretary  of  State  for  the  De- 
partment of  Arbitration. 

She  gave  an  exclamation  of  surprise,  and  this  was 
followed  by  one  that  suggested  irritation.  She  was 
more  than  irritated,  she  felt  that  she  had  lost  a  friend 
— her  dearest  friend.  She  had  always  known  that 
Josephine  was  somewhat  reticent  about  her  own  af- 
fairs for  an  ideal  friend  ;  but  the  notion  of  her  being 
in  love  with  Mr.  Clifton  and  carefully  refraining 
from  giving  a  hint  to  any  one  of  the  state  of  her 
heart  was  past  all  bearing. 

And  yet  she  remembered  now  having  had  once  or 
twice  during  the  previous  six  months,  a  suspicion  that 
if  Josephine  inclined  to  look  on  any  man  of  their  ac- 
quaintance with  especial  favour  that  man  was  Mr. 
Clifton.  She  might  have  guessed  .  .  .  but  what 
about  Pierce  Winwood  ?  What  about  her  father's 
subtle  suggestions  as  to  the  possibility  of  Josephine's 
looking  with  eyes  of  favour  on  Pierce  Winwood? 
What  about  that  Monday  morning  when  they  had 
277 


278  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

come  into  the  house  together  talking  with  guilty  flu- 
ency about  a  reaping  machine  that  was  painted  blue 
and  delicately  picked  out  with  vermillion  ? 

"  I  will  never — never  trust  to  the  evidence  of  my 
own  eyes  again,"  she  cried,  remembering  the  look  of 
exultation  on  Mr.  Winwood's  face  upon  that  morning. 
She  also  made  up  her  mind  that  she  would  never  again 
in  matters  of  this  sort  trust  to  the  evidence  of  her 
father's  experience,  even  though  conveyed  to  her  in 
the  choicest  and  most  enigmatical  language  ever  em- 
ployed by  him.  Her  father  had  shown  a  desire  to 
encourage  the  bringing  about  of  a  match  between 
Josephine  and  Pierce ;  and  indeed  he  had  proved  his 
possession  of  some  of  the  qualities  of  the  fully 
equipped  match-maker,  which  she  took  to  be  a 
cheery  readiness  to  assume  the  role  of  a  sort  of 
boarding-house  Providence,  and  a  complete  faith  in 
the  influence  of  propinquity  upon  opposing  natures. 

She  would  never  again  trust  to  her  father's  judg- 
ment. He  knew  too  much  about  electricity. 

She  had  an  opportunity  of  telling  him  so,  but  she 
refrained  from  doing  so :  if  he  lacked  judgment  there 
was  no  reason  for  her  to  attempt  to  consolidate  his 
views  on  heredity  by  so  indiscreet  an  act.  She 
pointed  out  the  paragraph  to  him  when  he  came 
down  to  breakfast  but  made  no  comment  upon  it. 
No  one  since  the  world  began  ever  regarded  an  ab- 
sence of  comment  as  an  indiscretion. 

"  But  it  takes  my  breath  away,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 
u  Heavens  !  just  think  of  it — Clifton — Ernest  Clif- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  279 

ton,  the  wire-puller.  What  can  she  possibly  see 
.  oh,  after  all  ...  a  curious  coincidence, 
isn't  it,  that  this  talk  should  be  just  now  about  her 
father  getting  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet  ?  But  I  can't  for 
the  life  of  me  see  where  Clifton  comes  in.  He  has 
no  power  of  that  sort,  whatever  may  be  ascribed  to 
him  as  an  organiser  in  the  country.  He  could  be  of 
no  use  to  West,  for  his  seat  is  a  perfectly  safe  one. 
And  we  thought  .  .  ." 

"  Ton  did,  at  any  rate,"  said  Amber. 

"I  did — I  admit  it.  I  thought — I  hoped.  It 
would  have  come  out  so  well.  I  might  have  been 
able  to  give  him  a  helping  hand." 

"  To  give  Mr.  Winwood  a  helping  hand  ?  " 

"  I  thought  it  just  possible  if  the  worst  came  to 
the  worst.  But  I  suppose  the  business  is  settled  in 
the  other  quarter.  We  can  do  nothing  now." 

"  Of  course  one  can  do  nothing  when  the  an- 
nouncement has  appeared  in  the  papers."  Amber 
was  disposed  to  take  the  same  view  of  Providence 
and  the  papers  as  was  taken  by  the  Under  Secretary 
for  the  Arbitration  Department.  They  both  appeared 
to  regard  the  newspaper  announcement  as  a  sort  of 
civil  ceremony,  quite  as  binding  as  the  one  which 
follows  the  singing  of  u  The  Voice  that  breathed  o'er 
Eden." 

"  I  confess  that  I  am  surprised,"  continued  Amber. 
u  But  I  suppose  one's  friends  never  do  marry  the 
people  one  allots  to  them.  Still,  there  was  no  reason 
for  Josephine  to  be  so  secret." 


280  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  Was  there  not  ?  "  said  her  father.  "  Take  my 
word  for  it,  if  a  woman  is  ever  secret  it  is  only  under 
the  severest  pressure." 

Amber  smiled.  Applying  her  father's  aphorism  to 
herself,  she  refrained  from  expressing  what  she 
thought  on  the  subject  of  her  father's  knowledge 
of  woman's  nature. 

But  beyond  doubt  Sir  Creighton  took  deeply  to 
heart  the  frustration  of  his  incipient  efforts  as  a  match- 
maker. His  daughter  was  surprised  at  his  head-shak- 
ings and  his  thoughtful  pauses — at  his  general  abstrac- 
tion. She  knew  enough  of  him  to  be  well  aware  that 
it  was  not  his  own  work  which  disturbed  him :  he 
was  accustomed  to  made  merry  over  the  little  aberra- 
tions of  adapted  electricity,  just  as  some  fathers  (with 
trusted  memories)  make  merry  over  the  vagaries  of 
their  sons,  and  as  some  women  (with  a  sense  of 
humour)  can  smile  at  the  fringes  of  their  under-house- 
maids.  It  was  perfectly  clear  that  Sir  Creighton  was 
profoundly  discouraged  at  the  failure  of  his  attempt 
to  make  Josephine  and  Pierce  fall  in  love,  each  with 
each.  He  felt  as  if  Fate  had  openly  sneered  at  him 
and  he  was  looking  about  for  a  way  of  retaliating. 
So  much  at  least  his  daughter  gathered  from  his  man- 
ner, and  his  frank  admissions.  The  frank  admissions 
of  a  man  count  for  something  in  any  honest  en- 
deavour that  one  may  make  to  determine  what  is  on 
his  mind. 

"  Do  you  know  what  a  straight  flush  is,  my  dear  ? " 
he  enquired  as  he  rose  from  the  table.  "  I  thought 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  281 

that   I   had   the  joker,"    he   added   thoughtfully — re- 
gretfully. 

(He  was  the  best  poker  player  in  the  Royal 
Society.) 

Amber  had  herself  been  thinking  out  a  scheme  of 
retaliation,  and  it  was  directed  against  her  friend  who 
had  been  reticent  to  a  point  of  unfriendliness.  A 
friend  should  be  permitted  to  share  her  friend's  in- 
firmities but  Josephine  had  left  her  to  read  the  an- 
nouncement of  her  engagement  in  the  papers.  After 
some  thought  she  came  to  the  conclusion  that  she 
would  be  out  when  Josephine  should  call.  She  took 
it  for  granted  that  Josephine  intended  to  call,  and  so 
made  arrangements  for  going  to  the  Technical  School 
of  Literature  immediately  after  lunch.  She  would 
have  gone  before  lunch — for  she  had  not  been  latterly 
so  regular  an  attendant  as  Mr.  Richmond  could  have 
wished — but  that  for  the  fact  that  her  mother  had 
asked  Lord  Lullworth  to  drop  in  and  have  lunch  with 
them,  and  Amber's  scheme  of  retaliation  did  not  go 
so  far  as  to  compass  the  personal  slighting  of  even 
the  least  of  her  mother's  guests. 

And  Lord  Lullworth  came. 

He  was  really  very  amusing,  and  sometimes  very 
nice ;  but  he  was  both  during  lunch  ;  it  was  when 
that  refection  was  over,  and  Lady  Severn  had  gone 
into  an  inner  room  to  write  out  a  commission — it  had 
something  to  do  with  the  matching  of  sewing-silks — 
for  her  daughter  to  execute  in  Regent  Street  that 
Lord  Lullworth  ceased  to  be  amusing  because  he  be- 


282  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

gan  to  be  funny.  He  told  Amber  that  he  didn't  mind 
being  one  of  the  literary  arbitrators  on  the  Aunt 
Dorothy  competition,  should  such  be  set  on  foot  at 
the  Technical  School.  Would  dear  Aunt  Dorothy 
tell  him  what  was  the  colour  of  Adam's  grey  mare  ? 
Would  she  hazard  a  reply  to  the  query,  under  the 
heading  of  "  Our  Feathered  Pets  "  as  to  whether  the 
white  goose  or  the  grey  goose  was  the  gander  ?  Also 
could  she  supply  some  information  respecting  the  man 
who  had  the  twenty-six  sheep — twenty  sick  sheep, 
mind — and  when  one  of  them  died  how  many  were 
left  ? 

"  I  will  not  have  my  hobby  made  fun  of,"  said 
Amber.  "  It  would  do  you  all  the  good  in  the  world 
to  come  to  the  school." 

"  I  believe  it  would,"  he  said,  after  a  pause, "  and  I 
do  believe  that  I'll  come ;  but  it  won't  be  for  the  sake 
of  the  show,  but  just  because  you  are  there.  Now,  a 
fortnight  ago  I  would  have  laughed  at  the  idea  of  go- 
ing to  such  a  show,  so  I  think  that  you'll  agree  with 
me  in  what  I  said  about  love  growing.  I  really  feel 
that  mine  is  becoming  quite  grown  up.  He  has  got 
too  big  for  his  sailor  suit,  and  I'll  have  to  get  him 
measured  for  an  Eton  jacket.  I  wonder  if  you  have 
been  thinking  over  the  possibilities  that  I  placed  be- 
fore you  that  day." 

"  Of  course  I  thought  over  them.  Why  shouldn't 
I  ?  "  said  Amber. 

u  And  do  they  appear  so  ridiculous  now  as  they  did 
then  ?  " 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  283 

"  Not  nearly  so  ridiculous,"  she  replied.  "  One 
gets  used  to  things.  Really  there's  nothing  I  like 
better  than  to  hear  that  you  will  be  some  place  where 
I  am  going.  I  have — yes,  I  have  got  really  to  like 
you." 

"  You  never  thought  of  wishing  to  have  me  for  a 
brother,  did  you  ?"  he  asked  apprehensively. 

"  Oh,  never — never — I  give  you  my  word — 
never ! "  she  cried,  and  he  breathed  freely  once 
more. 

"  Thank  goodness  !  Then  I've  still  got  a  chance. 
If  you  had  ever  felt  that  you  would  like  me  for  a 
brother  I  would  put  on  my  hat  and  skip.  Do  you 
know  that  you  are  encouraging  me  ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  know  it.  I  meant  to  encourage 
you,  just  to  see  what  will  come  of  it." 

"  You'll  see.  I  should  like  to  encourage  you.  It 
will  take  a  deal  of  encouragement  to  bring  you  on  so 
that  we  may  start  scratch ;  because,  you  know,  I — I 
really  do  believe  that  I'm  on  the  verge  of  being  in 
love  with  you." 

"  I  would  not  go  on  any  further,  until  I  catch  you 
up." 

"  If  I  thought  you  would  one  day." 

"  I  really  think  that  I  shall — one  day.  There  is 
nothing  like  getting  used  to  an  idea.  I  thought  that 
I  should  never  get  reconciled  to  the  notion  of  a  lover 
— a  lover  seems  so  banal — and  yet  already  I — yes,  I 
like  it.  You  see,  I'm  wondering  what  will  come  of 
it.  I  was  born  in  a  laboratory  atmosphere.  My 


284  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

father  made  his  first  great  discovery  in  electricity  the 
day  I  was  born — that's  why  he  called  me  Amber — 
Amber  is  the  English  for  the  Greek  word  electron,  and 
that's  the  origin  of  the  word  electricity,  you  know." 

He  looked  at  her  admiringly. 

"You  don't  need  much  to  go  to  any  school,"  said 
he.  "Just  fancy  your  knowing  all  that!  By  the 
way,  don't  you  forget  that  it's  in  the  bargain  that  I'm 
to  let  you  know  if  I  find  myself  properly  in  love  with 
you — seriously,  I  mean." 

"  It  will  be  so  interesting,"  said  she.  "  I'm  dying 
to  see  what  will  be  the  result  of  our  experiment.  I 
wonder  does  it  matter  about  my  not  thinking  you 
good-looking." 

He  caught  her  hand.     She  flushed. 

"  Do  you  not  think  me  good-looking  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Well,  really,  to  be  candid  with  you — and  of 
course  it's  in  the  4  rules '  that  we  are  both  to  be  can- 
did, I  think  you  anything  but — but — good  gracious  ! 
what  has  come  over  me  ?  Only  yesterday  I  was 
thinking  about  you  and  I  thought  of  you  as  being 
quite  plain ;  but  now — now  that  I  come  to  look  at 
you,  I  declare  that  you  seem  good-looking — positively 
good-looking  !  You  have  good  eyes.  I  don't  suppose 
you  ever  told  a  lie  in  your  life." 

"  That's  going  from  a  question  of  eyes  to  ethics, 
isn't  it ;  but  whether  or  not  I  ever  had  imagination 
enough  to  tell  a  whopper,  I  am  telling  the  truth  now 
when  I  say  that  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
you  are  the  nicest  girl  I  ever  met  as  well  as  being  the 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  285 

most  beautiful — that's  why  I  tried  to.  You  see  I 
always  thought  you  the  most  beautiful — that's  why  I 
tried  to  avoid  meeting  you  for  a  long  time — I  was 
afraid  that  I  would  be  disillusioned,  as  they  call  it." 

"  And  you  were  not  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary  I  think  that — that  we're  on  the 
eve  of  a  very  interesting  experiment — that's  how  the 
newspapers  would  define  the  situation  of  the  moment." 

"After  all  nothing  may  come  of  it."  There  was  a 
suspicion  of  a  sigh  in  her  delivery  of  the  phrase. 

"  Are  you  taking  what  you  would  call  an  optimis- 
tic view  of  the  matter  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  actually  flushed  again — very  slightly — as  she 
said  : 

"  The  scientific  atmosphere  in  which  I  was  born  for- 
bids optimism  or  pessimism.  I  wish  to  remain  neutral." 

"  I  shall  make  no  attempt  to  bias  your  judgment 
one  way  or  another,"  said  he. 

Lady  Severn  returned  to  the  room  and  gave  her 
daughter  her  instructions  regarding  the  silks. 

"  I  wish  you  would  let  me  do  it  for  you,  Lady  Sev- 
ern," said  Lord  Lullworth  seriously.  "  I  have  to  go 
to  Bond  Street  anyway,  and  my  horse  wants  exercise." 

Amber  turned  round  and  stared  at  him  ;  her  mother 
laughed.  Then  Amber  put  the  patterns  of  silk  into 
one  of  his  hands,  and  crying, 

"  Let  him  do  it :  he  really  wants  to  do  it,"  she  ran 
out  of  the  room. 

"  I  want  to  have  a  chat  with  you,  my  dear  Lady 
Severn,"  said  he.  "  It  was  you  who  were  good 


286  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

enough  to  ask  me  to  lunch,  and  yet  I've  hardly  ex- 
changed a  word  with  you." 

"  Nothing  would  delight  me  more,"  said  Lady  Sev- 
ern. "  I  will  intrust  you  with  my  commission,  but  it 
will  do  any  time  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon.  We 
can  have  our  chat  first." 

And  they  had  their  chat. 

It  was  while  it  was  in  progress  Amber  was  sitting 
at  her  desk  in  the  Technical  Schoolroom  listening  to 
Mr.  Owen  Glendower's  enunciation  of  the  problem 
in  plots  which  was  to  serve  as  an  exercise  for  his 
pupils.  Amber,  in  her  haste  to  retaliate  upon  Jo- 
sephine's secrecy  by  being  absent  when  she  should 
call,  arrived  at  the  class-room  several  minutes  too 
soon.  She  had,  however,  upon  a  former  occasion, 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  earnest  American  girl 
whose  name  was  Miss  Quartz  Mica  Hanker — she 
was  said  to  be  worth  some  ten  million  (dollars) — and 
now  she  had  a  pleasant  little  talk  with  her. 

At  first  Amber  hesitated  approaching  her,  for  to- 
day, Miss  Hanker  was  dressed  in  deep  mourning. 
She,  however,  smiled  invitingly  towards  Amber,  and 
Amber  crossed  the  class-room  to  her. 

"  I  fear  that  you  have  suffered  a  bereavement,"  said 
Amber  in  the  hushed  voice  that  suggests  sympathy. 

"  Oh,  no ;  at  least  not  recently ;  but  you  must 
surely  remember  that  this  is  the  anniversary  of  the  death 
of  King  James  the  Third,"  said  Miss  Hanker. 

u  Oh,  King  James  the  Third  ?  "  said  Amber.  "  But 
there  never  was  a  James  the  Third  of  England." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  287 

"That  is  the  fiction  of  the  Hanoverians,"  said 
Miss  Hanker  scornfully.  "  But  we  know  better.  I 
am  the  Vice-President  of  the  White  Rose  Society  of 
Nokomis  County,  Nebraska,  and  we  are  loyal  to  the 
true  dynasty.  We  decline  to  acknowledge  any  al- 
legiance to  the  distant  branch  at  present  in  occupation 
of  the  Throne.  The  rightful  Queen  to-day  is  the 
Princess  Clementina  Sobieska." 

"  I  thought  that  the  Pretender  — "  began  Amber. 

"  The  Pretender !  "  cried  Miss  Hanker  still  more 
scornfully.  "  He  pretended  nothing.  I  am  going  to 
separate  pretence  and  the  Pretender  once  and  for  all 
when  I  write  my  novel — '  The  White  Rose.'  I  came 
to  this  side  to  learn  how  to  do  it.  I  find  Owen  Glen- 
dower  Richmond  very  helpful.  He  has  royal  blood 
in  his  veins — plenty  of  it.  He  may  be  on  the  throne 
of  Wales  yet.  Miss  Amber,  I  don't  desiderate  a 
Civil  war,  but  when  my  novel  conies  out  if  the  British 
don't  turn  round  and  put  the  Princess  Clementina 
Sobieska  on  their  Throne,  they  are  not  the  people  I 
have  been  told  they  are.  I  don't  advocate  extreme 
measures,  but  loyalty  is  loyalty,  and  the  American 
people  are  true  Royalists.  They  can  never  forget  that 
it  was  one  of  the  Hanoverians  who  brought  about  their 
separation  from  Britain.  That  old  wound  is  rankling 
yet  in  the  breast  of  every  true  American." 

And  then  Mr.  Owen  Glendower  Richmond  en- 
tered the  class-room,  and  Amber  nodded  au  revoir  to 
the  American  girl,  and  went  to  her  own  desk. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

MR.  RICHMOND  had  become  more  carefully  care- 
less in  regard  to  his  dress  during  the  past  few  weeks 
than  he  had  yet  been,  Amber  thought.  She  noticed 
with  surprise  that  there  was  a  breath  of  Byron — a 
suspiration  of  Shelley  about  his  collars,  which  was  not 
so  before.  He  still  wore  a  frock  coat  but  he  did  it 
with  the  most  painstaking  negligence,  and  from  some 
standpoints  it  did  not  look  a  bit  like  a  frock  coat. 
His  hair  was  short,  but  it  was  plainly  (in  some  lights) 
the  hair  of  a  thoughtful  man.  The  amount  of 
thinking  that  goes  on  beneath  even  the  shortest  hair 
has  a  perturbing  influence  upon  it :  one  does  not  ex- 
pect the  grass  which  grows  on  the  sides  of  an  active 
volcano  to  be  as  ordinary  grass. 

He  wore  his  tie  in  a  loose  bow. 

"  I  am  about  to  offer  for  your  consideration  a  time- 
study,"  said  Mr.  Richmond,  when  he  had  tapped  the 
tubular  end  of  his  quill  pen  upon  the  edge  of  his  desk. 
"  Last  week  I  had  a  most  satisfactory  response  to  the 
home  exercise  on  the  '  Honest  Doubter '  form  of  fic- 
tion, but  I  must  say  here  lest  I  should  forget  it,  that 
I  think  it  was  unnecessary  to  define,  as  some  of  the 
class  did,  the  doubts  of  the  Honest  Doubter.  It  was 
also  a  technical  error  to  clear  away  his  doubts.  Of 
course  there  is  a  good  deal  to  say  in  favour  of  the  do- 
mestic treatment  of  the  theme,  adopted  by  some  of 
288 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  289 

the  class.  Marrying  him  to  an  estimable  and  brain- 
less woman,  and  showing  his  doubts  cleared  away  as 
he  stands  alone  in  the  nursery  looking  at  the  face  of 
his  sleeping  child,  is  an  excellent  suburban  view  to 
take  of  the  Honest  Doubter ;  nine  ladies  were  most 
successful  in  their  treatment  of  the  subject  on  these 
lines ;  but  I  regret  to  say  that  not  one  of  them 
thought  of  the  moonlight.  A  moment's  reflection 
should  be  sufficient  to  convince  any  one  of  the  im- 
possibility of  banishing  a  strong  man's  doubts  in  the 
afternoon,  or  before  lunch.  He  must  be  brought  full 
into  the  moonlight.  The  technical  phrase  is : 
4  There ;  with  the  moonlight  of  heaven  streaming 
through  the  nursery  window  upon  the  little  face  of 
his  child,  the  strong  man  felt  his  heart  soften  and  be- 
come once  more  as  the  heart  of  a  little  child.  All 
the  doubts  that  had  clung  to  him  for  years  as  the 
mists  cling  to  the  moor  fled  away,  as  those  same  mists 
melt  into  the  moonlight.  He  felt  that  a  new  day  was 
breaking  for  him,  a  new  light,  he  looked  down  at  the 
little  sleeping  face,  and  cried—-'  you  can  make  him 
say  anything  you  please :  but  he  must  say  it  when  the 
moon  is  full.  Still,  I  repeat  the  papers  were  most 
satisfactory  as  a  whole.  Now,  the  Time  Study  for 
to-day  is  on  a  very  different  theme ;  but  it  is  one 
which  I  hope  will  appeal  to  the  imagination  of  a 
good  many  in  the  class.  The  headings  are  these  : 
Given,  a  young  man — well,  not  perhaps,  very  young 
— let  us  say,  a  still  young  man,  of  good  family,  but 
by  the  force  of  circumstances  for  which  he  is  not  re- 


290  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

sponsible — undeserved  misfortune — compelled  to  be- 
come a  tutor  in  a  family  of  distinction ;  he  falls  in 
love  with  the  beautiful  daughter  of  the  house  ;  but  he 
is  too  proud  to  confess  his  love,  he  is  too  modest  to 
reveal  himself  to  her.  He  has  his  hopes — sometimes 
they  are  strong  when  she  smiles  upon  him,  and  then 
he  thinks  of  his  own  humble  position  and  he  is  on  the 
verge  of  despair.  Required  the  conclusion  of  the 
story  :  the  happy  accident  by  which  he  is  enabled  to 
reveal  himself." 

In  a  second  a  dozen  at  least  of  the  young  women 
in  the  class  were  writing  away  for  dear  life,  only  a 
few  thought  it  necessary  to  give  any  preliminary  con- 
sideration to  the  problem  suggested  by  Mr.  Rich- 
mond. The  little  governess,  however,  who  sat  at  a 
distant  desk,  could  not  write  on  account  of  her  tears, 
and  the  half  pay  veteran  was  laboriously  mending  his 
quill  pen.  Amber,  who  used  a  reservoir  pen,  and  had 
never  seen  a  quill  being  mended,  watched  the  opera- 
tion with  a  curious  interest. 

She  had  no  intention  of  making  an  attempt  to  work 
out  the  theme.  The  truth  was  that  her  heart  was 
beginning  to  soften  towards  Josephine,  and  she  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  in  adopting  so  drastic  a  scheme 
of  retaliation  for  Josephine's  secrecy  respecting  her 
engagement  to  Mr.  Clifton,  she  was  showing  herself 
to  be  very  hard-hearted.  She  felt  that  she  should 
have  waited  at  home  to  kiss  Josephine  when  she 
should  call. 

She  made  up  her  mind  not  to  remain  at  the  school 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  291 

for  the  Aunt  Dorothy  class  which  followed  the  Time- 
Study  class,  but  to  hasten  to  the  side  of  her  friend, 
and  if  she  failed  to  find  her  at  home,  she  would  drive 
back  to  her  own  home,  and  catch  her  there,  and  then 
— well,  perhaps  Lord  Lullworth  would  drop  in  for 
tea,  when  he  came  back  with  the  matched  silks  for 
Lady  Severn. 

"  You  are  not  working  out  the  Time  Study,  Miss 
Severn,"  said  Mr.  Richmond  taking  a  seat  beside  her. 
This  was  his  system  of  helpfulness  referred  to  by 
Miss  Quartz  Mica  Hanker.  He  was  accustomed  to 
take  a  seat  by  the  side  of  some  member  of  his  class — 
he  seemed  discreetly  indifferent  to  sex  in  this  matter 
— in  Order  to  make  suggestions  as  to  the  working  out 
of  the  Time  Study.  He  invariably  spoke  in  so  low  a 
tone  as  to  run  no  chance  of  disturbing  the  active 
members  of  the  class. 

"  I  do  not  feel  much  inclined  to  work  at  any- 
thing just  now,"  said  Amber.  "  But  I  am  glad  to 
see  so  many  other  girls  do  their  best.  You  have 
given  them  confidence,  Mr.  Richmond." 

"Then  I  give  away  what  I  myself  stand  most  in 
need  of  just  now,"  said  Mr.  Richmond  in  a  still 
lower  tone. 

"  Confidence  ?  "  said  Amber.  "  Oh,  I  think  you 
have  a  very  firm  hand  in  these  matters,  Mr.  Rich- 
mond. You  deal  with  every  problem  with  the  hand 
of  a  master." 

"  Alas  !  "  he  murmured.  "  Alas  !  I  find  myself 
faltering  even  now — at  this  moment.  Dear  Miss 


292  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

Severn,  will  you  not  make  the  attempt  to  work  out 
the  question  which  I  have  enunciated  for  you — be- 
lieve me,  it  was  for  you  only  I  enunciated  it  ? — a 
Time  Study  ?  Ah,  it  is  with  me  at  all  times — that 
problem.  Miss  Severn — Amber,  will  you  try  to  sug- 
gest a  happy  conclusion  to  the  parable  which  I  have 
just  uttered,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  am  in  the  position 
of  the  man,  and  that  I  think  of  you  in  the  position 
of  the  girl  ?  " 

Amber  scarcely  gave  a  start.  She  only  looked 
curiously  at  the  man  as  if  she  was  under  the  impres- 
sion that  he  was  enunciating  another  Time  Study 
for  her  to  work  out — as  if  he  was  making  a  well- 
meant  but  more  than  usually  unintelligible  attempt  to 
help  her  over  a  literary  stile. 

"  I  don't  quite  understand,  Mr.  Richmond,"  said 
she,  after  a  thoughtful  pause.  "  You  say  that  you  are 
_you " 

"  I  am  poor  and  obscure,  and  I  am  unfortunate 
enough  to  love — to  love  the  daughter  of  a  dis- 
tinguished family — you — you,  Amber.  What  is  to 
be  the  conclusion  of  the  story — my  love  story  ? — the 
conclusion  of  it  rests  with  you." 

Amber  heard  the  quill  pens  about  going  scrawl,  and 
the  steel  pens  going  scratch  and  the  pencils  going 
scribble.  The  voice  of  Mr.  Richmond  had  not  been 
raised  louder  than  the  voice  of  the  pens.  She  was 
too  much  astonished  to  be  able  to  reply  at  once.  But 
soon  the  reply  came. 

This  was  it. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  293 

She  picked  up  her  little  morocco  v/riting  case  and 
folded  it  carefully  and  fastened  the  elastic  band  over 
it,  then  she  picked  up  her  parasol,  rose,  and  went  to 
the  door,  without  a  word. 

He  was  before  her  at  the  door ;  he  held  it  open  for 
her.  She  went  out  without  a  word. 

He  was  in  no  way  overcome.  He  simply  walked 
to  another  desk  at  which  a  girl  was  scribbling.  He 
said  a  few  words  of  commendation  to  her.  Then  he 
crossed  the  room  to  where  Miss  Quartz  Mica  Hanker 
was  sitting  industriously  idle.  He  knew  she  was  giv- 
ing all  her  thoughts  to  the  solution  of  the  problem 
which  he  had  offered  to  her,  and  this  was  real  in- 
dustry. 

"  Dear  Miss  Quartz,"  he  said  in  his  low  earnest 
voice — every  time  he  conversed  with  her  in  this 
voice  it  was  not  the  white  rose  that  was  suggested  by 
her  cheeks.  "  Dear  Miss  Quartz,  are  you  making 
the  attempt  to  work  out  the  question  which  I  have 
enunciated  for  you — believe  me,  it  was  for  you  only 
I  enunciated  it — a  Time  Study  ?  Ah,  it  is  with  me 
for  all  time — that  problem.  Miss  Quartz,  will  you 
try  to  suggest  a  happy  conclusion  to  the  parable 
which  I  have  just  uttered,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  am 
in  the  position  of  the  man  and  that  I  think  of  you  in 
the  position  of  the  girl  ?  " 

Miss  Quartz  proved  herself  to  be  a  far  more  apt 
student  of  the  obscure  than  Miss  Severn.  She  looked 
down  at  the  blank  paper  in  front  of  her  saying : 

"  I  wonder  if  you  mean  that — that — you -' 


294  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  I  am  poor  and  obscure,"  said  he,  "  and  I  am  un- 
fortunate enough  to  love — to  love  the  daughter  of  a 
distinguished  family — to  love  you — you.  What  is  to 
be  the  conclusion  of  the  story — my  love  story  ? — the 
conclusion  rests  with  you." 

Miss  Quartz  had  mastered  the  literary  technicali- 
ties of  various  sorts  of  proposals  and  acceptances — 
it  had  been  Mr.  Richmond's  pleasing  duty  dur- 
ing the  month  to  keep  the  members  of  his  class 
abreast  of  that  important  incident  in  the  making  of 
fiction  known  as  The  Proposal.  She  carried  out  the 
technicalities  of  the  "  business "  of  the  part  of  the 
addressee  to  the  letter — that  is  to  say,  she  became 
suffused  with  a  delicate  pink — only  she  became  a 
very  peony,  as  she  looked  coyly  down  to  the  paper 
on  her  desk.  She  put  her  ungloved  hand  an  inch 
or  two  nearer  to  his,  raising  her  eyes  to  his,  for  a 
moment. 

;     He  glanced  round  the  room,  and  having  reassured 
himself,  he  laid  his  hand  gently  on  hers. 

"  Dear  child,"  he  said.  "  I  have  greatly  dared — I 
have  greatly  dared.  You  will  never  regret  it.  Your 
novel  will  rank  with  c  Esmond  '  and  'The  Virginians  ' 
and  «  Ben  Hur  ' " 

"  And  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin  ?  "  she  cried.  "  Oh, 
Mr.  Richmond,  if  you  promise  me  that  I  shall  be 
alluded  to  as  the  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin  of  Nebraska 
I'll  just  go  down  on  my  knees  and  worship  you." 

"Ah,"  he  said  with  a  smile.  "She  has  never  writ- 
ten an  historical  novel.  She  has  made  books,  but 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  295 

never  an  Epoch.  c  The  White  Rose '  will  be  an 
Epoch-making  book." 

"  The  girl's  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Such  a  future 
as  he  promised  her  was  too  dazzling  to  be  viewed  ex- 
cept through  such  a  dimness. 

"  Come  to  my  aunt's  for  tea  to-night,"  she  whis- 
pered. "  The  Daniel  Webster  boarding-house,  Guild- 
ford  Street.  My  money  is  in  my  own  hands.  Sixty 
thousand  dollars." 

"  The  legitimate  end  of  the  story  has  come — you 
have  solved  the  question,"  he  murmured. 

He  rose  and  returned  to  his  desk.  Sixty  thousand 
dollars — twelve  thousand  pounds.  He  had  calculated 
on  five  millions.  Sixty  thousand — well,  it  was  better 
than  nothing. 

And  that  insolent  girl,  Amber  Severn,  would  know 
that  all  girls  were  not  like  her — that  was  something 
too. 

But  by  the  time  he  had  come  to  consider  this  very 
important  point,  Amber  Severn,  full  of  anger  against 
the  man  who  had  not  hesitated  to  take  advantage  of 
his  position  as  the  master  of  a  school  in  order  to  make 
a  proposal  to  one  of  his  pupils — the  man  who  had 
outraged  her  sense  of  the  protecting  influences  of 
Platonic  friendship,  was  flying  along  in  her  motor 
Victoria  in  the  direction  of  Palace  Gate  where  was 
the  town  residence  of  the  Under  Secretary  for  the 
Arbitration  Department.  She  was  burning  with  in- 
dignation against  Mr.  Owen  Glendower  Richmond, 


296  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

for  his  having  the  effrontery  to  add  to  the  efforts 
which  other  people  had  already  made  to  shatter  her 
theory.  She  had  heard  of  preceptors — they  were 
mostly  in  the  musical  line — taking  advantage  of  their 
opportunities  to  make  love  to  their  pupils  and  she  had 
always  held  such  persons  in  contempt.  But  if  they 
were  contemptible,  how  much  more  so  was  not  such 
a  man  as  Mr.  Richmond — a  man  whose  business  it 
was  to  give  a  helping  hand  to  those  who  might  be 
anxious  to  write  books  illustrating  the  charm  of  dis- 
interested friendship  between  men  and  women  ? 

She  felt  very  bitterly  in  regard  to  Mr.  Richmond, 
quite  as  bitterly  as  did  Barak  the  son  of  Zippor  against 
the  professional  vituperator  who,  when  he  had  a 
chance  of  showing  what  stuff  he  was  made  of,  had 
rounded  upon  his  patron.  Amber  had  great  hopes 
that  one  day  a  novel  might  be  written  to  make  the 
world  aware  of  the  beautiful  possibilities  of  friendship 
for  friendship's  sake  only,  between  the  sexes,  and  she 
had  looked  to  Mr.  Richmond  to  help  on  such  a  proj- 
ect. And  yet  it  was  he  who  had  gone  further  than 
any  one  else  in  impressing  on  her  the  weakness  of  the 
basis  of  her  faith. 

She  felt  greatly  disappointed.  She  felt  that  she 
was  being  daily  disillusioned,  and  no  one  likes  to  be 
disillusioned :  it  makes  one  feel  such  a  fool.  So  great 
an  effect  had  the  act  of  Guy  Overton  and  Mr.  Rich- 
mond upon  her  that  she  actually  felt  glad  that  she  had 
not  bound  herself  irrevocably  to  her  theory  but  that 
latterly  she  had  hedged.  She  knew  that  her  attitude 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  297 

in  regard  to  Lord  Lullworth  was  suggestive  of  the 
hedge.  He  had  boldly  refused  any  compromise  with 
her.  He  had  told  her  at  the  outset  of  their  acquaint- 
ance that  he  scoffed  at  the  idea  of  her  ideal — that  his 
object  in  coming  to  see  her  would  be  strictly  anti- 
platonic  and  yet  her  fondness  for  experiments  had 
been  so  great  that  she  had  not  made  his  scoffing  at 
her  ideal  of  friendship  a  barrier  to  their  future  asso- 
ciation. If  this  was  not  hedging  there  never  was 
hedging  in  any  question  of  philosophy  in  the  world ; 
and  so  far  as  she  could  make  out  philosophy  was 
simply  the  science  of  hedging. 

She  felt  glad  that  she  had  encouraged  Lord  Lull- 
worth,  the  exponent  of  a  cult  that  admitted  of  no 
compromise.  With  him  she  was  at  least  safe.  For 
obvious  reasons,  he  could  never  cause  her  to  feel  such 
disappointment  as  she  felt  at  the  conduct  of  Guy 
Overton  and  at  the  conduct  of  Owen  Glendower 
Richmond.  When  one  is  in  the  presence  of  a  man 
who  promptly  avows  himself  a  brigand  one  is  never 
surprised  if  one  feels  a  tug  at  one's  purse.  The  sur- 
prise and  the  sorrow  come  only  when  one  is  in  the 
company  of  a  professional  moralist  and  detects  him 
trying  to  wheedle  one's  handkerchief  out  of  one's 
pocket. 

By  the  time  she  had  reached  the  Brompton  Road 
Amber  Severn  was  feeling  very  strongly  that  the 
companionship  of  professed  brigands  was  much  to  be 
preferred  to  the  association  with  philosophers  who 
talked  of  disinterested  friendship  while  in  the  act  of 


298  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

pocketing  your  silver  spoons.  An  avowed  lover  was, 
she  was  sure,  infinitely  safer  than  a  man  who  carries 
Plato  in  his  breast  pocket  and  presses  his  hand  upon 
it  while  he  makes  a  glib  proposal  of  marriage  to  every 
girl  he  meets. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

AMBER  had  been  dwelling  so  much  upon  her 
philosophy  and  its  development  that  she  half  hoped 
that  Josephine  was  not  at  home :  there  was  just  a 
possibility  that  if  Josephine  was  not  at  home,  she, 
Amber,  would  get  back  to  her  own  home  in  time  to 
give  Lord  Lullworth  a  cup  of  tea  on  his  return  with 
the  matched  silks  for  her  mother.  She  was  therefore 
slightly  disappointed  to  learn  that  Miss  West  was  at 
home  and  in  the  drawing-room  with  her  ladyship. 

Josephine  was  paler  than  Amber  had  ever  seen  her, 
and  she  was  certainly  colder  than  she  had  ever 
known  her.  She  scarcely  made  any  response  to  Am- 
ber's long  kiss. 

Resignation — that  was  the  word  which  came  to 
Amber's  mind  when  she  held  her  friend  by  both 
hands  and  looked  at  her.  She  was  a  statue — a  mar- 
ble statue  of  Resignation.  The  worst  might  come ; 
it  would  not  move  her. 

"I  thought — I  expected—  '  Amber  began,  with 
a  tone  of  reproach  in  her  voice.  "  You  are  really  go- 
ing to  marry  him — him — Mr.  Clifton  ?  "  she  cried, 
after  faltering  over  a  word  or  two. 

"  Did  you  not  see  it  in  the  papers,  and  has  any  one 
the  hardihood  to  put  the  papers  in  the  wrong  ?  "  said 
Josephine. 

299 


300  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  And  you  are  to  be  congratulated  ?  I  am  to  con- 
gratulate you  ?  "  said  Amber. 

"  Ah,  that  is  quite  another  matter,  my  Amber," 
laughed  Josephine.  Amber  did  not  like  her  laugh. 

"  Why  should  it  be  another  matter  ? "  she  asked. 
"  If  you  love " 

"  Heavens  !  are  you — you — you  who  are  the  ex- 
ponent of  the  ineffable  fragrance  of  friendship — ac- 
cording to  Plato — are  you  going  to  talk  of  the  lustre 
of  love  ?  "  said  Josephine.  "  There's  a  cluster  of 
phrases  for  you,  my  dear.  l  The  fragrance  of  Friend- 
ship— the  lustre  of  Love  ' — quite  like  a  modern  poet's 
phrase,  is  it  not  ?  Send  it  to  your  friend  Mr.  Rich- 
mond to  serve  up  to  his  fourth  form  pupils.  c  Given, 
the  phrase  to  make  the  poem ' — that's  the  exercise — 
what  does  he  call  it — the  Time  Study  ?  Do  let  us 
try  it.  It  should  run  like  this :  4  The  Fragrance 
of  Friendship  is  folly  ' — that's  a  capital  line — even 
though  it  does  contain  a  memory  of '  Dolores.'  And 
then  you  must  go  on — 'The  Lustre  of  Love  is  a 
lure '  ?  Yes,  that  might  do,  if  you  can't  find  any- 
thing better.  And  now  let  us  talk  about  something 
agreeable  for  a  change.  Here  is  my  dear  mother 
dying  to  tell  you  what  she  thinks  of  your  trying  to 
entrap  poor  Lord  Lully  in  your  network  of  Platonism. 
She  saw  you  in  the  garden  at  Hyde  Park  Gate  on 
Monday." 

Amber  turned  away.  She  had  never  known  any- 
thing more  pathetic  than  the  way  in  which  Josephine 
had  rushed  along  when  once  she  began  to  speak. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  301 

There  was  not  a  note  of  Josephine's  voice  in  all  she 
had  said.  When  Josephine  had  ever  played  at  being 
cynical,  she  had  gone  softly — there  had  been  some- 
thing of  merriment  in  her  voice;  but  now  there  was 
the  gleam  of  chilled  steel  in  every  flash  of  her  phrases. 
The  implacable  brilliance  of  a  bayonet  charge  was  in 
all  her  words.  Amber  felt  as  if  a  bird  which  had 
always  sung  the  song  of  a  thrush  had  suddenly  de- 
veloped the  metallic  shriek  of  the  parrot. 

Amber  was  ready  to  weep  at  the  pathos  of  it.  It 
was  pathetic;  but  terrible.  She  saw  that  Josephine's 
nerves  were  strung  up  to  the  highest  point  of  tension, 
and  that  was  why  the  effect  of  shrillness  was  pro- 
duced by  her  speech. 

She  turned  to  Lady  Gwendolen.  Surely  Lady 
Gwendolen  would  at  last  become  a  mother  to  her 
own  daughter  !  Surely  she  would  detect  the  pathos 
of  the  change  that  had  come  about  in  her  nature. 
And  indeed  Lady  Gwendolen  was  very  sympathetic. 

"  It  is  all  very  well  to  make  light  of  the  whole 
business,  my  dear  Amber,"  she  cried  plaintively. 
"  Daughters  engage  themselves  to  be  married,  and 
sometimes  get  married  too,'  without  a  thought  for 
their  mothers.  Ah,  is  there  no  poet — no  novelist — 
who  will  deal  adequately  with  the  mother's  tragedy  ? 
It  will  make  me  look  a  hundred,  at  the  very  least ! 
A  married  daughter !  .  .  .  '  Good  heavens  !  ' 
people  will  say.  4 1  had  no  idea  that  Lady  Gwen- 
dolen had  a  married  daughter ;  why  then  she  must  be 
at  least ' — and  then  they  will  name  some  horrid  age — 


302  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

forty,  may  be, — I  know  the  way  of  these  women. 
c  Forty — she  must  be  a  good  way  over  forty,'  they 
will  say.  4  She  was  no  chicken  when  she  married, 
and  her  daughter  looks  every  day  of  twenty-six — 
why,  she  must  be  at  least  fifty ' — they  will  try  to 
make  me  out  to  be  fifty — fifty-two  the  spiteful  ones 
will  insist  on — I  know  them.  They  will  take  very 
good  care  never  to  look  up  Debrett  to  get  at  the 
truth.  Ah,  the  Mother's  Tragedy — the  Mother's 
Tragedy.  No  one  ever  thinks  of  asking  about  a 
woman's  age  until  her  daughter  gets  married.  Then, 
it's  the  first  thing  they  do.  Ah,  the  Mother's 
Tragedy !  How  well  that  broad  brim  suits  her, 
doesn't  it,  Joe  ?  You  didn't  think,  I  suppose,  of  a 
bow  of  cerise  chiffon  just  at  the  curve?  A  little 
daring  thing  like  that,  you  know,  is  often  quite 
effective." 

"  I  hope  you  will  be  happy,  my  dearest  Joe,"  said 
Amber. 

"  I  shall  be  married,  at  any  rate,"  said  Josephine, 
"  and  isn't  that  a  step  in  the  right  direction  ?  Hap- 
piness? .  .  .  Well,  could  there  be  anything  more 
ridiculous  than  an  attempt  to  define  happiness  ?  Six 
months  ago  I  had  no  hesitation  in  defining  it  for  my 
own  benefit.  I  defined  it — down  to  the  very  man. 
That  was  where  I  was  the  fool, — for  now  I  have 
come  to  think  that  that  which  I  thought  to  be  hap- 
piness is  the  only  unhappiness  that  exists  for  me  in 
the  world.  But  I  shall  face  it.  I  shall  face  it.  When 
one  has  been  a  fool  one  must  pay  for  it." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  303 

"  Dear  Joe — oh,  Joe — Joe  !  Do  not  talk  so,  for 
God's  sake,"  cried  Amber. 

"  You  began  it,  my  dear  Amber,"  said  Joe,  point- 
ing a  finger  at  her,  and  leaning  back  among  the 
cushions  of  her  sofa.  The  attitude  was  that  one  of 
the  lovely  figures  in  Andrea's  picture  of  "  The  Wed- 
ding Feast,"  and  Amber  recognised  it  with  horror. 
"  You  began  it — you,  talking  about  happiness  and 
the  rest  of  it,"  she  continued.  "Well,  there,  I'll  say 
no  more.  .  .  .  Heavens,  I  forgot  that  I  did  not 
see  you  since  we  returned  from  The  Weir !  And 
that  seems  a  lifetime  ago.  Ah,  it  is  true,  l  Marriage 
and  death  and  division,  make  barren  our  lives.'  I 
wonder  why  I  was  such  a  fool  as  to  go  to  The  Weir 
with  you,  Amber." 

"  What  has  come  over  her  ?  She  has  been  quite 
as  rude  as  that  all  day,"  complained  Lady  Gwen- 
dolen. "  I  thought  that  nothing  could  make  her 
rude,  however  full  of  theories  she  might  be.  But 
I've  noticed,  Amber,  that  rudeness  and  a  reputation 
usually  go  together.  At  any  rate,  the  women  who 
are  said  to  be  intellectual  seem  to  me  to  be  nothing 
but  rude.  As  soon  as  a  woman  has  insulted  you 
grossly  three  times  you  must  take  it  for  granted  that 
her  intellect  is  of  the  highest  order.  Of  course  if  you 
think  cerise,  too  trying  you  might  have  it  in  a  much 
lighter  shade  just  where  the  brim  begins  to  curve. 
You  saw  my  toque  with  the  poppies  and  the  corn  ? 
I  was  not  afraid  to  face  the  strongest  colour.  Oh, 
must  you  really  go  ?  " 


304  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

"  She  really  must :  I  cannot  see  how  she  could 
possibly  remain  another  five  minutes,"  said  Josephine. 
"  Amber  has  some  sense  of  what  is  sacred  and  what 
is  profane.  I  had  the  same  ideas  a  week  ago,  but 
that's  a  long  time  back.  Priestesses  of  Baal  must 
have  revolted  the  sensitiveness  of  the  daughters  of 
Levi.  Good-bye,  Amber,  and  take  my  advice  and 
don't  come  back  to  us.  I  should  be  sorry  to  flaunt 
my  new-found  unhappiness  in  your  face." 

The  tone  of  her  voice  and  of  her  laugh  that  fol- 
lowed gave  Amber  the  impulse  to  put  her  fingers  in 
her  ears  and  rush  from  the  room — from  the  house. 
She  resisted  the  suggestion,  however,  and  contented 
herself  with  a  protest  of  uplifted  hands  and  mourn- 
fully shaking  head. 

"  Poor  Joe — poor  Joe  !  "  she  whispered. 

"That  is  the  sincerest  congratulation  I  have  yet 
had,"  said  Josephine.  "  It  is  the  congratulation  that 
contains  the  smallest  amount  of  bitterness.  When 
people  say  *  I  hope  you  may  be  happy,  my  dear,'  they 
mean  that  they  wouldn't  give  much  for  my  chances. 
No,  Amber,  don't  come  back  to  us  until  I  get  used 
to  being  engaged.  So  many  people  have  come.  Mr. 
Clifton  is  wiser:  he  stays  away.  Oh,  he  was  always 
so  clever!  The  idea  of  a  girl  like  myself  trying  to 
be  equal  to  him  ! — Good-bye,  dear." 

Amber  did  not  speak  a  word.  She  almost  rushed 
from  the  room,  while  Lady  Gwendolen  was  still  talk- 
ing, musingly,  of  the  merits  of  a  bow  of  pink  chiffon 
— it  need  not  necessarily  be  a  large  or  an  imposing 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  305 

incident  in  the  composition  of  the  hat  with  the  broad 
brim,  a  mere  suggestion  of  the  tint  would  be  enough, 
she  thought. 

Amber  felt  as  if  she  had  just  come  from  the  death- 
bed of  her  dearest  friend.  She  was  horrified  at  the 
tone  of  Josephine's  voice  and  at  the  sound  of  her 
laugh.  She  felt  that  she  never  wished  to  see  again 
the  creature  who  had  taken  the  place  of  her  dear 
friend  Josephine  West. 

The  daughter  of  a  mother  who  was  a  worldling, 
and  of  a  father  who  was  a  politician,  Josephine  had 
ever  shown  herself  to  be  free  from  the  influence  of 
either.  But  now — well,  even  her  father  was  able  to 
assume  a  certain  amount  of  sincerity  in  dealing  with 
political  questions,  especially  when  a  General  Elec- 
tion was  impending.  He  had  never  talked  cynically 
of  the  things  which  were  held  dear  by  the  people  with 
the  votes.  And  as  for  her  mother  she  was  in  the 
habit  of  speaking  with  deep  feeling  on  the  subject  of 
the  right  fur  for  opera  cloaks  and  other  matters  of 
interest  to  the  intelligent.  But  there  was  Josephine 
talking  and  laughing  on  the  first  day  of  her  engage- 
ment with  a  cynicism  that  could  not  have  been  bit- 
terer had  she  been  married  a  whole  year. 

What  did  it  mean  ?  What  had  brought  about  that 
extraordinary  change  in  the  girl's  nature  ?  These 
were  the  questions  which  distracted  Amber  all  the 
way  to  her  home. 

She  could  not  forget  that,  after  Josephine  had 
written  that  little  paper  defining  Platonic  Friendship, 


3o6  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

she  had  been  led  to  ask  herself  why  Josephine  should 
have  thought  well  to  be  so  satirical  on  the  subject ; 
and  she  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Josephine's 
attitude  was  due  to  the  fact  of  her  having  a  tender 
feeling  not  of  friendship  but  of  love  for  some 
man ;  and  Amber's  suspicions  fell  upon  Ernest  Clif- 
ton. She  felt  sure  that  she  had  noticed  a  certain 
light  in  Josephine's  face  upon  occasions  when  Mr. 
Clifton  was  near  her.  And  yet  now  that  she  promised 
to  become  the  wife  of  Mr.  Clifton,  the  light  that  was 
in  her  eyes  was  an  illumination  of  a  very  different  sort. 

And  then  as  the  question  of  exultation  suggested 
itself  to  her  she  recollected  how  she  fancied  that  she 
had  perceived  such  an  expression  on  the  face  of  her 
friend  on  the  Monday  morning  when  she  had  returned 
to  The  Weir  by  the  side  of  Pierce  Winwood.  The 
same  expression  was  on  the  face  of  Pierce  Winwood 
also,  and  Amber  had  felt  convinced  that  he  had  told 
her  he  loved  her  and  that  she  had  not  rejected  him. 

That  was  why  they  had  talked  so  enthusiastically  on 
the  subject  of  the  reaping  machine  (blue,  picked  out 
with  vermillion). 

But  how  was  she  to  reconcile  what  she  had  seen 
and  heard  in  the  drawing-room  which  she  had  just 
left  with  her  recollection  of  the  return  of  Josephine 
and  the  other  man — not  the  man  whom  she  had 
promised  to  marry — from  the  survey  of  the  reaping 
machine  ? 

Pierce  Winwood  had  practically  confessed  to  her 
that  he  meant  to  ask  Josephine  if  she  thought  she 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  307 

could  love  him,  and  the  chance  had  undoubtedly  been 
given  to  him  to  put  such  a  question  to  her.  If  then — 
if— if  he  ... 

In  an  instant  she  fancied  that  she  perceived  all  that 
had  happened. 

She  did  not  as  a  matter  of  fact  perceive  all  that 
had  happened,  but  she  certainly  did  become  aware  of 
a  good  deal — enough  for  her  to  go  on  with  ;  and  a 
moment  after  perceiving  this  she  saw  that  Pierce 
Winwood  was  walking  rapidly  alongside  the  rails  of 
Kensington  Gardens. 

He  saw  her  and  made  a  little  motion  with  his  hand 
suggesting  his  desire  to  speak  to  her.  She  stopped 
the  victoria. 

"  I  hope  you  will  be  at  home  this  afternoon,"  he 
said.  "  I  am  so  anxious  to  speak  with  you  for  five 
minutes." 

"  I  will  walk  the  rest  of  the  way  home :  I  have 
not  had  a  walk  to-day,"  she  said,  stepping  out  of  the 
victoria. 

"You  are  very  good,"  he  said,  as  the  machine 
whirled  off.  "  Do  let  us  turn  into  the  gardens  for  a 
minute.  I  should  not  like  to  miss  this  chance.  You 
saw  that  announcement  in  the  papers  to-day  ?  " 

"  Ah — ah  !  "  she  sighed,  as  they  went  through  one 
of  the  gates  and  on  to  an  avenue  made  dim  by  the 
boughs  of  horse-chestnut. 

"  Think  of  it  !  Think  of  that  paragraph  if  you 
can  when  I  tell  you  that  she  told  me  only  on  Monday 
that  she  loved  me,"  he  cried. 


3o8  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

She  stopped  short.  So  she  had  not  been  mistaken 
after  all. 

"  She  promised — Josephine  promised  ?  " 

"  She  promised.  I  gave  you  to  understand  that  I 
meant  to  put  my  fate  to  the  test,  and  I  did  so  on 
Monday.  Ah,  she  told  me  that  she  loved  me — me 
only — me  only — and  I  know  that  she  spoke  the  truth. 
She  loved  me  then — she  loves  me  now — me  only — 
and  yet — you  saw  that  announcement." 

Amber  could  only  shake  her  head  dolefully. 
Matters  were  getting  too  complicated  for  her.  The 
effort  to  reconcile  one  incident  with  another  was  a 
pain  to  her. 

"  You  told  me  that  she  was  free,"  he  continued. 
"  That  was  because  you  did  not  know  that  she  had 
been  engaged  secretly  to  that  man.  He  was  clever 
enough — unscrupulous  enough — clever  people  are  un- 
scrupulous. It  is  only  the  people  who  are  less  clever 
that  fail  to  get  rid  of  their  scruples — at  any  rate  he 
persuaded  her  to  bind  herself  to  him  in  secret.  Later 
— a  fortnight  ago — she  insisted  on  his  releasing  her 
and  he  did  so — technically ;  but  in  parting  from  her 
— more  cleverness — he  gave  her  to  understand  that 
he  regarded  her  as  still  bound  to  him — he  made  it  a 
matter  of  honour — she  was  only  released  on  parole — a 
trick.  Was  she  not  entitled  to  listen  to  me  ?  No 
one  can  deny  it.  She  had  her  misgivings,  but  that 
was  afterwards — she  had' confessed  that  she  loved  me 
— me  only.  I  did  not  give  the  matter  a  thought. 
She  had  no  doubt  that  she  would  be  able  to  meet  him. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  309 

Her  protection  was  to  ask  him  to  go  to  her  father  for 
his  consent." 

"  And  he  took  her  at  her  word.  He  got  her 
father's  consent.  They  are  both  politicians — her 
father  and  the  other.  And  every  member  of  the 
Government  knows  enough  about  every  other  mem- 
ber of  the  Government  to  hang  him.  They  must 
have  made  a  compact  together.  They  say  that  Mr. 
Clifton  is  the  cleverest  politician  in  England.  We 
know  what  that  means.  My  father  says, 4  Show  me  the 
cleverest  politician  in  England  and  I'll  show  you  the 
greatest  rascal  in  Europe.' " 

"  There  must  have  been  something  diabolical  at 
work.  This  is  the  letter  which  she  wrote  to  me. 
Poor  girl !  Poor  girl !  " 

"  I  cannot  read  it — I  know  it  all — all.  I  love  her 
— I  cannot  listen  to  the  despairing  cries  of  one  whom 
I  love.  Poor  Josephine  !  I  was  with  her  just  now 
.  oh,  terrible — terrible  !  " 

"  Ah,  you  have  been  with  her  ?  you  saw  her  ?  She 
would  not  see  me.  And  what  have  you  found  out  ? 
Do  not  tell  me  that  she  cares  anything  for  him." 

"  I  saw  her ;  but  what  could  I  find  out  ?  She  did 
not  confide  anything  to  me — she  did  not  seek  to  do 

so.  I  shall  never  go  again She  frightened  me. 

There  was  no  word  of  Josephine  in  all  she  said. 
Have  you  not  been  to  her  ?  " 

"  Been  to  her.  How  could  I  get  that  letter  and 
remain  away  from  her  ?  I  went  in  the  forenoon — she 
would  not  see  me— the  man  had  received  his  instruc- 


310  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

tions.  That  is  why  I  was  going  to  you.  You  must 
ask  her  to  go  to  you  to-morrow,  and  I  shall  meet  her 
at  your  house.  My  God,  cannot  you  perceive  that  I 
must  see  ? — that  she  must  be  saved  from  her  fate  ? 
.  What  am  I  thinking  of — to  talk  to  you  in 
this  way — commanding  ?  What  can  you  think  of 
me?" 

"  Do  not  accuse  me  of  being  unable  to  see  how 
you  love  her.  But  I  cannot  do  what  you  ask  me. 
How  would  it  be  possible  ?  You  must  write  to  her 
— persuade  her  to  see  you." 

"  And  I  thought  that  you  were  my  friend." 

He  had  stopped  on  the  avenue  and  was  gazing  at 
her  reproachfully. 

"  I  am  your  friend,"  she  said,  "  and  therefore  I 
cannot  do  this.  If  you  were  to  meet  her  and  hear 
her  talk  as  I  heard  her  to-day  you  would  turn  away 
from  her  forever.  I  know  that." 

"  Turn  from  her — I — I — turn  from  her — her  ?  " 
he  cried.  "  Oh,  let  me  have  the  chance — you  will 
give  me  the  chance  ?  " 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  Then  what  am  I  to  do  ?  "  he  said.  "  Would  you 
counsel  me  to  remain  passive — to  allow  her  to  marry 
that  man  whom  she  detests  and  to  send  her  a  wedding 
present  ?  A  diamond  star  would  be  a  nice  present, 
wouldn't  it  ?  or  a  wheat  sheaf — I  saw  one  the  other 
day — set  with  pearls  and  diamonds  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  are  talking  now  just  as  she  talked — so 
wildly — so  wickedly.  Cannot  you  see  that  just  at 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  311 

this  moment  you  are  both  beyond  the  control  of  rea- 
son ?  You  say  things  to  me  now  that  you  do  not 
mean — she  did  the  same.  If  you  were  to  meet  now 
you  would  say  things  to  her — she  would  say  things  to 
you — you  would  part  from  her  forever." 

"  I  would  be  calm.  I  would  remember  that  every- 
thing depended  on  my  being  calm." 

"Ah,  you  think  so.  But  you  cannot  be  calm  even 
to  me.  And  you  did  not  see  her  as  I  saw  her  just 
now." 

"  Would  to  heaven  that  I  had  the  chance." 

"  Do  not  say  that.  You  would  drown  yourself 
there." 

(They  had  reached  the  Round  Pond.) 

He  walked  along  in  silence  by  her  side — in  silence 
and  with  bowed  head. 

"  I  know  what  will  happen,"  he  said  at  last :  "  she 
will  soon  become  reconciled  to  her  fate.  She  will 
soon  come  to  think  that  he  is  part  of  her  life  and  I 
shall  cease  to  be  in  any  thought  of  hers.  Well,  per- 
haps that  is  the  best  thing  that  could  happen.  But  I 
thought  that  she  was  not  like  other  women.  I  fancied 
that  when  she  knew  .  .  .  But  you  will  see  her 
again  ?  You  will  tell  her  that  I  must  see  her — surely 
she  will  let  me  say  good-bye  to  her." 

"  I  can  say  nothing.  But  you  must  not  see  her 
now.  Wait  for  a  day  or  two.  Oh,  cannot  you  trust 
her  to  bear  you  in  mind  for  a  day  or  two  ?  Did  she 
not  say  that  she  loved  you  ?  " 

"  And  she  does — I  know  that  she  does.     Oh,  it  is 


312  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

the  old  story — the  old  story.  Her  father  has  forced 
her  into  this." 

Amber  could  say  nothing.  She  thought  that  it 
would  be  better  for  her  not  to  go  into  the  question  of 
the  antiquity  of  the  story  of  a  girl  promising  to  marry 
a  rich  man,  and  her  parents  endeavouring  to  marry 
her  to  a  poor  one — that  was  the  summary  of  the  love 
story  of  Josephine  West. 

He  walked  in  silence — comparative  silence — by  her 
side  until  they  reached  the  road  once  more.  At  the 
entrance  to  her  home,  he  said  humbly : 

"  My  dear  Miss  Severn,  I  feel  that  you  have  given 
me  good  advice.  I  will  obey  you — I  will  make  no 
attempt  to  see  her  for  some  days.  I  knew  that  I 
should  be  right  in  coming  to  you.  You  will  forgive 
me  for  the  wild  way  I  talked  to  you." 

"  If  you  had  not  talked  in  that  way  I  would  never 
speak  to  you  again,"  said  Amber,  giving  him  her 
hand. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

AMBER  ran  upstairs  to  her  room  and  threw  herself 
not  upon  the  little  sofa  in  her  dressing-room  but  upon 
the  bed  in  her  bedroom.  She  was  guided  in  the  right 
direction.  She  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  cry 
which  was  coming  was  too  big  for  a  sofa — it  was  a 
bed-sized  cry. 

She  lay  in  her  tears  for  more  than  an  hour,  and  no 
one  went  near  her  to  disturb  her.  Emotions  were 
recognised  as  possible  in  this  household — emotions 
and  moods  and  sulks — and  no  member  of  the  house- 
hold— ancillary  or  otherwise — was  allowed  to  inter- 
fere with  another. 

Her  mother  was  fortunate  in  having  been  at  one 
time  of  her  life  of  the  same  age  as  Amber,  and  she 
had  a  pretty  good  notion  of  how  it  was  that  her 
daughter  did  not  come  downstairs  for  tea.  Lady  Sev- 
ern had  heard  her  daughter's  comments  upon  the  an- 
nouncement of  Josephine's  engagement,  and  having 
herself  noticed  the  expression  on  the  faces  of  her 
guests  at  The  Weir  on  their  return  together  from  their 
stroll,  she  had  no  great  difficulty  in  understanding  how 
it  was  possible  that  Amber  might  be  having  a  good 
cry  after  visiting  her  friend  Josephine. 

It  was,  however,  Sir  Creighton  who,  before  dinner, 
asked  Amber  if  she  had  learned  anything  by  her  visit 
to  Josephine.  He  appeared  quite  anxious  to  know 


3H  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

all  that  there  was  to  be  known  on  the  subject  of  Jo- 
sephine's engagement  to  Mr.  Clifton ;  but  for  that 
matter  he  took  quite  as  much  interest  as  his  wife,  in 
the  incidents  of  their  social  life.  Even  the  humblest 
essays  in  elementary  biology  had  a  certain  attraction 
about  them,  he  was  accustomed  to  say. 

Amber  gave  him  a  spasmodic  account  of  her  call 
upon  Josephine,  and  of  her  subsequent  overtaking  of 
Pierce  and  his  confession  during  their  stroll  in  the 
Park. 

"Just  think  of  it,"  she  said  by  way  of  summing  up. 
"  Just  think  of  it :  she  acknowledged  to  Mr.  Win- 
wood  on  Monday  that  she  loved  him,  and  yet  to-day 
she  allows  it  to  be  announced  in  the  papers  that  she 
is  to  be  married  to  the  other  man  !  Was  there  ever 
anything  so  terrible  since  the  world  began  ?  " 

"Never — never,"  said  he.  "Nothing  of  such  ter- 
rible significance  to  Josephine  and  Winwood  has  been 
heard  of  since  the  world  began.  There  is  a  good  deal 
in  this  business  which  is  not  easy  to  understand  with- 
out the  aid  of  a  trustworthy  key  to  the  motives  of  men 
and  women  and  political  adventurers.  If  she  had 
promised  in  secret  long  ago  to  marry  Clifton,  the  se- 
cret being  kept  a  secret  because  of  the  unlikelihood  of 
her  father's  giving  his  consent  to  the  engagement, 
what,  I  should  like  to  know,  has  occurred  during  the 
past  few  days  to  make  Clifton  perceive  that  her  father 
would  give  his  consent  ?  You  got  a  hint  from  Jo- 
sephine on  this  point — or  that  fool  of  a  mother  of  hers 
— did  she  say  nothing  that  would  suggest  a  compact 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  315 

— a  reciprocal  treaty,  these  politicians  would  call  it — 
between  Mr.  West  and  Mr.  Clifton  ?  " 

Amber  laughed  scornfully. 

"  Lady  Gwendolen  talked  about  the  new  opera 
cloaks,"  said  she. 

"  A  topic  well  within  her  grasp,"  said  Sir  Creigh- 
ton.  "  If  I  wished  for  any  information  regarding  the 
possibilities  of  longevity  among  certain  esoteric  de- 
velopments of  the  opera  cloak  I  think  I  would  apply 
to  Lady  Gwendolen.  She  is,  one  might  say,  the  ac- 
tuary of  the  opera  cloak :  she  can  calculate,  upon  the 
theory  of  averages,  the  duration  of  life  of  such 
ephemera." 

"Yes;  but  what  is  to  be  done,"  said  Amber,  who 
perceived  the  danger  of  drifting  into  phrases  and 
fancying  that  because  a  good  sentence  has  been  made, 
there  is  no  need  for  further  action. 

Sir  Creighton  walked  to  a  window  and  stood  in 
front  of  it  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"  We  can  do  a  good  deal,"  he  said,  after  a  pause  of 
considerable  duration.  "  I  know,  at  any  rate,  that  I 
can  do  a  good  deal  in  this  matter — yes,  in  certain  cir- 
cumstances I  think  that  I  have  a  good  deal  of  influ- 
ence— moral  influence  of  course,  not  the  other  sort, — 
to  avoid  making  use  of  an  uglier  word,  we  shall  call 
it  political  influence.  But  we  must  be  certain  first 
how  we  stand — exactly  how  we  stand.  Why  should 
West  give  his  consent  just  now  to  his  daughter's  en- 
gagement to  Clifton  when  both  persons  mainly  con- 
cerned in  the  contract  considered  six  months  ago  that 


3i 6  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

it  would  be  quite  useless  to  make  an  appeal  to  him. 
Why,  according  to  what  you  say  Winwood  told  you, 
Josephine  up  to  last  Monday  felt  certain  that  it  would 
be  ridiculous  to  expect  that  he  would  entertain  a 
thought  of  Clifton  as  a  son-in-law.  Now,  what  we 
need  to  find  out  is,  How  did  Clifton  convince  Jo- 
sephine's father  that  he  was  the  right  man  to  marry 
his  daughter  ?  " 

Amber  could  not  see  for  the  life  of  her  what  bear- 
ing this  point  had  upon  the  question  of  the  destiny  of 
Josephine,  but  she  had  a  great  deal  of  confidence  in 
her  father. 

"  Mind  you,  my  dear,"  resumed  Sir  Creighton,  "  I 
do  not  say  that  Josephine  has  not  herself  to  thank  for 
a  good  deal  of  this  trouble.  Why  should  she  allow 
herself  to  be  persuaded  into  an  underhand  compact 
with  that  man  ?  And  then,  having  entered  into  that 
compact,  why  does  she  allow  herself  to  fall  in  love 
with  quite  another  man  ?  " 

"  How  could  she  prevent  it  ?  "  cried  Amber.  "  How 
is  a  girl  to  prevent  herself  from  falling  in  love  with 
one  particular  man?" 

"  Possibly  a  course  of  higher  mathematics  might  be 
prescribed,"  said  Sir  Creighton.  "My  dear  Amber, 
I  don't  think  that  Josephine  is  the  heroine  of  this 
romance.  However,  that  is  no  reason  why  she  should 
not  be  happy — it  is  certainly  no  reason  why  Pierce 
Winwood  should  be  unhappy.  He  at  least  is  blame- 
less." 

This  was  the  end  of  their  conversation  at  that  time, 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  317 

and  Amber  felt  that  it  had  not  been  very  helpful  in 
the  way  of  furthering  the  prospects  of  Pierce  Win- 
wood,  and,  incidentally,  of  Josephine  West. 

She  could  not  even  see  why  her  father  should  laugh 
the  laugh  of  a  man  who  is  gratified  on  receiving  a 
proof  of  his  own  shrewdness,  when  the  following 
morning  he  pointed  out  to  her  in  one  of  the  newspa- 
pers, under  the  heading  of  Changes  in  the  Cabinet, 
the  announcement  that  the  Minister  of  the  Annexa- 
tion Department  had  agreed  to  go  to  the  Exchequer 
on  the  resignation  owing  to  his  increasing  deafness  of 
the  Chancellor,  and  that  Mr.  Carew  West,  the  Under 
Secretary  for  the  Arbitration  Office,  had  accepted  the 
portfolio  thereby  rendered  vacant,  with  a  Seat  in  the 
Cabinet. 

Every  paper  in  the  kingdom  contained  a  leading 
article  or  a  note  under  the  leading  article,  referring  to 
this  important  change  and  offering  congratulations  to 
the  new  Minister.  But  the  paper  which  Sir  Creigh- 
ton  showed  to  his  daughter  went  rather  more  into  the 
details  of  the  Cabinet  Changes,  and  explained  that  it 
was  thought  by  many  people  that  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  would  not  resign  until  a  seat  had  been 
found  for  Mr.  Eardley,  who  had  had  a  seat  in  the  last 
Cabinet  of  the  existing  Government,  but  who  had 
failed  to  be  returned  for  his  old  constituency  at  the 
General  Election.  The  Government  had,  however, 
been  advised  that,  owing  to  the  attitude  of  the  elec- 
tors of  the  Arbroath  Burghs  in  regard  to  the  war,  the 
return  of  Mr.  Eardley  for  that  fickle  constituency 


318  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

could  not  be  relied  on,  and  therefore  the  Under  Sec- 
retary at  the  Arbitration  Office  had  got  his  seat  in  the 
Cabinet  rather  sooner  than  might  have  been  expected. 

"  There  is  the  explanation  of  it  all,"  said  Sir 
Creighton.  "  I  wondered  how  it  was  that  Clifton 
could  get  into  his  hands  the  wires  that  affected  West, 
for  every  one  knows  that  West's  seat  is  a  perfectly 
safe  one,  and  Clifton  is  only  a  wire-puller  among  the 
constituencies.  But  now  the  whole  thing  is  clear  to 
me.  The  Chancellor  has  made  a  fool  of  himself  and 
the  Government  want  to  unload  him.  They  want 
their  old  colleague  Eardley  back,  and  they  ask  Clifton 
about  the  Arbroath  Burghs.  If  Clifton  says  c  safe,' 
the  Chancellor  will  wait  until  Eardley  is  returned ;  if 
he  says  c  unsafe  '  the  vacant  place  will  be  given  to 
West.  Clifton  then  goes  to  West  and  says  l  Would 
you  care  to  get  into  the  Cabinet  ?  I  can  put  you  into 
the  Cabinet  to-morrow.'  c  What's  your  price  ? '  cries 
West,  perceiving  that  the  object  of  his  ambition  is 
within  reach,  and  hoping  that  Clifton  will  be  as  reason- 
able as  Mephisto  was  to  Faust,  and  only  say,  c  Your 
Soul.'  But  Clifton  knows  that  the  soul  of  an  Under 
Secretary  is  quoted  low  in  the  Market,  but  that  a 
daughter  is  a  perfectly  negotiable  security — oh,  the 
whole  thing  is  clear." 

"  Quite  clear,"  acquiesced  Amber,  "  but  where 
does  Mr.  Winwood  come  in  ?  " 

Her  father  roared  with  laughter. 

"  You  are  surely  the  most  practical  young  woman 
that  lives,"  he  said.  "  Here  have  I  been  romancing 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  319 

away  in  the  vaguest  fashion  and  so  overwhelmed  with 
a  sense  of  my  own  cleverness  that  I  lose  sight  of  the 
true  objective — the  phrase  is  one  of  the  multitudinous 
military  critics,  my  dear — but  you,  you  hold  me 
down  to  the  dry  details  of  the  matter  in  hand." 

"  You  see,  my  dear  father,  I  have  not  yet  been 
able  to  understand  how  much  is  gained  by  your  know- 
ing that  Mr.  West  had  some  reason  for  giving  his 
consent  to  Josephine's  engagement  with  Mr.  Clifton," 
said  Amber. 

"  It  was  necessary  for  me  to  see  if  Mr.  Clifton  held 
debenture  stock  in  the  Soul  of  Julian  Carew  West  or 
only  ordinary  shares,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 

"  And  have  you  found  that  out  ?  " 

"  I  have  found  that  he  holds  merely  preference 
shares.  And  now  that  the  Soul  of  Mr.  West  is  so- 

O 

ing  into  allotment  it  is  just  possible  that  I  may  be 
successful  in  getting  in  on  the  ground  floor,  as  your 
friend  Mr.  Galmyn  would  say." 

"  I  don't  understand  even  yet." 

"  Better  not  try  for  a  few  days  yet.  Give  the  man 
a  chance  of  settling  down  in  his  place  in  the  Cabinet 
and  feeling  comfortable  in  regard  to  his  future.  A 
man  who  has  just  managed  to  crawl  into  a  high  of- 
fice should  not  be  bothered  by  people  making  enquir- 
ies as  to  the  marks  of  mud  on  the  knees  of  his 
trousers.  There  is  no  crawling  through  mud  without 
getting  a  stain  or  two.  But  do  not  forget  that  I  am 
the  inventor  of  the  only  time  fuse  in  existence." 

He  left  his  daughter  to  ponder  over  that  dark  say- 


320  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

ing.  The  advantages  of  the  Severn  time-fuse  for  ex- 
ploding mines  were  so  well  known  that  even  the 
members  of  his  own  family  had  heard  of  them.  But 
what  did  her  father  who  was  the  least  egotistical  man 
on  the  face  of  the  earth,  mean  by  referring  to  that 
special  invention  of  his  ? 

She  was  annoyed  by  his  attitude  of  mystery,  and 
when  the  afternoon  came  she  was  still  further  an- 
noyed, when  in  the  course  of  giving  Arthur  Galmyn 
a  cup  of  nice  tea,  he  begged  of  her  to  marry  him, 
confessing  that  he  had  gone  on  the  Stock  Exchange 
only  out  of  love  for  her,  and  threatening  to  go  back 
to  the  poetry  once  more  if  she  refused  him. 

Regardless  of  this  pistol  held  to  her  head,  she  told 
him  that  he  had  disappointed  her.  She  had  always 
looked  on  him  as  a  true  friend. 

He  hurried  away  at  the  entrance  of  Mr.  Willie 
Bateman,  and  before  Mr.  Bateman  had  eaten  his 
second  hot  cake,  he  had  assured  her  that  if  she  were 
good  enough  to  marry  him  she  might  depend  upon 
his  making  her  the  most  celebrated  woman  in  Eng- 
land. He  had  a  plan,  he  said — an  advertising  system 
that  could  not  possibly  fail,  and  if  she  rejected  him  he 
would  communicate  it  to  the  Duchess  of  Manxland 
who  was  at  her  wit's  end  to  find  some  new  scheme  of 
advertising  herself — she  had  exhausted  all  the  old 
ones. 

But  even  the  force  of  this  threat  did  not  prevent 
Amber  from  telling  him  that  he  had  disappointed  her. 
She  had  always  looked  on  him  as  a  true  friend. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  321 

When  he  had  gone  away  in  a  huff,  she  ate  the  re- 
mainder of  the  hot  cakes  and  reflected  that  she  had  re- 
ceived four  proposals  of  marriage  within  the  week. 

This  was  excessively  flattering  and  annoying,  and 
the  truth  began  to  be  impressed  upon  her  that  Pla- 
tonic Friendship  was  all  that  Josephine  had  said  it  was 
and  that  it  was  in  addition  a  perpetual  encouragement 
to  a  timorous  lover. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

A  LETTER  received  from  Pierce  Winwood  two  days 
later  made  her  inclined  to  ask,  as  he  did  several  times, 
in  the  course  of  three  hurricane  pages,  if  inaction 
as  a  policy  might  not  be  pursued  too  long  ?  Her 
father  had  responded  enigmatically  to  her  hints  that 
she  thought  if  a  Cabinet  Minister  could  not  settle 
down  in  his  seat  in  the  course  of  two  days  he  must  be 
singularly  ill-adapted  for  a  career  of  repose. 

He  had  laughed  heartily  when  she  asked  him  again 
if  Mr.  West  was  not  ready  for  the  time-fuse  ?  or  was 
it  the  time-fuse  that  was  not  ready  for  Mr.  West,  but 
the  questions  were  not  further  responded  to ;  and  now 
here  was  Mr.  Winwood  saying  that  he  would  call  this 
very  day. 

His  announcement  sounded  like  the  tradesman's 
threat  which  she  had  once  seen  at  the  foot  of  a  col- 
lege bill  of  her  brother's  to  the  effect  that  the  writer 
would  call  on  such  a  day  at  such  an  hour  and  hoped 
that  Mr.  Severn  would  find  it  convenient  to  have  his 
money  ready  for  him. 

She  found,  on  counting  her  loose  change — all  that 
she  had  got  from  her  father  in  response  to  her  hints 
— that  she  had  not  enough  to  pay  Pierce  Winwood — 
she  would  not  even  be  able  to  give  him  something  on 
account.  She  had  neither  seen  Josephine  nor  heard 
anything  about  her;  and  she  knew  better  than  to 
322 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  323 

fancy  that  the  ardent  lover  would  go  away  satisfied 
with  the  parable  of  the  time-fuse. 

She  had  all  the  courage  of  her  sex ;  but  she  could 
not  face  him.  She  actually  felt  herself  becoming 
nervous  at  the  thought  of  his  entering  the  room  and 
repeating  in  her  ears  the  words  which  he  had  shouted 
into  his  letter.  His  noisy  letter  had  greatly  disturbed 
her;  so  after  an  interval — an  uneasy  interval,  she 
rushed  at  paper  and  pens  and  scrawled  off  a  page  in 
precisely  the  same  style  as  that  which  he  had  made 
his  own,  begging  him  for  heaven's  sake  to  be  patient, 
if  it  was  possible,  for  a  few  days  still,  and  entreating 
him  to  be  a  man.  (She  knew  that  this  was  nonsense : 
to  be  a  man  was  to  be  wildly  unreasonable  and  ab- 
surdly impatient  in  simple  matters  such  as  waiting 
until  a  young  woman  came  to  know  her  own  mind.) 

She  was  in  the  act  of  putting  her  avalanche  letter 
in  reply  to  his  hurricane  pages,  into  its  envelope  when 
the  door  of  the  small  drawing-room  where  she  was 
sitting  at  a  writing-table  was  flung  open  and  Josephine 
swooped  down  on  her,  kissing  her  noisily  and  crying 
in  her  ear  the  one  word  "  saved — saved — saved  !  " 
after  the  style  of  the  young  woman  in  the  last  popular 
melodrama — only  much  less  graceful  in  pose. 

"What — what — what?"  cried  Amber  spasmodic- 
ally within  the  encircling  arms  of  her  friend. 

Then  they  both  rose,  as  it  might  be  said,  to  the 
surface  of  their  overwhelming  emotions,  and  stood 
facing  each  other  breathless  and  disordered. 

Josephine  went  off  in  a  peal  of  laughter,  Amber, 


324  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

ever  sympathetic  though  burning  with  curiosity,  fol- 
lowed her,  and  then  they  flung  themselves  on  the  sofa 
— one  at  each  end,  and  laughed  again. 

"  I  am  saved — saved — and  I  come  to  you  to  tell 
you  so,"  cried  Josephine,  catching  one  of  Amber's 
hands  and  swinging  her  arm  over  the  cushions  that 
billowed  between  them. 

"  Saved — saved — is  he  dead — or — or — has  he  been 
found  out  ?  "  whispered  Amber.  "  Clever  men  in- 
varibly  are  found  out." 

"  Found  out  ? — oh,  I  found  him  out  long  ago — the 
day  he  tricked  me  into  believing  that  I  was  still  bound 
to  him,  though  he  had  just  pretended  to  set  me  free. 
But  to-day — before  lunch  time — by  the  way,  I  have 
had  no  lunch  yet !  " 

Both  girls  laughed  as  aimlessly  as  negresses  at  this 
point,  it  seemed  so  ridiculous  not  to  have  had  lunch. 

"  Before  lunch — he  came  to  you  ?  "  suggested  Am- 
ber. 

"  Not  he — not  Launcelot  but  another — the  other 
was  a  young  woman — oh,  quite  good-looking,  and 
wearing  a  very  pretty  Parma-violet  velvet  hat  with 
ospreys,  and  a  cashmere  dress,  with  an  Eton  jacket 
trimmed  with  diagonal  stripes  of  velvet  to  match  the 
hat — oh,  quite  a  nice  girl.  I  had  never  seen  her  be- 
fore— she  had  sent  in  her  name — Miss  Barbara  Burden 
— such  a  sweet  name,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  Quite  charming !  Who  was  she  ?  I  never 
heard  the  name." 

"  I  had  never  heard  the  name.      I  fancied  that  she 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  325 

had  come  about  a  bazaar  for  the  widows  and  orphans, 
so  many  strangers  come  about  that,  you  know — but 
she  hadn't.  I  saw  her.  It  was  most  amusing ;  but 
she  was  quite  nice.  She  had  the  newspaper  in  her 
hand  with  that  announcement — that  horrid  announce- 


ment   

"  I  know — I  know." 

" 4  Do  you  love  that  man,  Miss  West  ? '  she  began, 
pointing  to  the  paragraph." 

"  Good  gracious  !  That  was  a  beginning — and  a 
total  stranger !  " 

"  So  I  thought.  Of  course  I  became  cold  and 
dignified.  4  Have  you  not  seen  that  I  am  going  to 
marry  Mr.  Clifton  ? '  I  asked  in  as  chilling  a  voice 
as  I  could  put  on  at  a  moment's  notice.  *  What  I 
mean  is  this,'  said  the  young  woman;  'if  you  tell  me 
that  you  are  about  to  marry  him  because  you  love 
him,  I  will  go  away  now  and  you  will  never  hear  any- 
thing of  me  again.  But  if  you  cannot  say  truly  that 
you  do  love  him  I  will  tell  you  that  the  day  you 
marry  him  I  shall  bring  an  action  against  him  that 
will  go  far  to  ruin  his  career  and  to  make  you  un- 
happy for  the  rest  of  your  life  unless  you  are  very 
different  from  what  I  have  heard  you  are,  Miss 
West.'  " 

"Heavens!" 

"  I  looked  at  her  and  saw  that  she  was  quite  nice. 
1 1  cannot  tell  you  that  I  love  him,'  said  I,  '  but  I  can 
tell  you  that  I  detest  him,  and  that  I  love  somebody 
else.  Is  that  good  enough  for  you  to  go  on  with  ? ' 


326  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

4  Thank  God ! '  she  cried  quite  fervently,  and  then 
she  told  me  her  story.  Oh,  there  was  nothing  wicked 
in  it.  She  is  the  daughter  of  a  doctor  in  a  town 
where  he  lived  before  he  came  to  London.  Her  fa- 
ther was  a  man  of  influence  in  the  town  and  Mr. 
Clifton  became  engaged  to  the  girl — but  in  secret — 
no  one  was  to  know  anything  about  it  until  he  should 
find  himself  in  a  position  to  get  her  father's  consent." 

"  A  country  doctor :  Mr.  Clifton  must  have  been 
in  a  small  way  even  then." 

"  So  he  was — he  hoped  to  better  himself  by  marry- 
ing her,  however.  She  showed  me  several  letters  that 
he  had  written  to  her — clever  letters,  but  still  such 
letters  as  would  be  received  with  laughter,  in  brackets, 
if  read  in  a  court  of  law.  Well,  he  left  that  town 
and  went  to  a  larger,  and  having  worked  himself  into 
a  better  position,  he  found  that  to  marry  the  girl 
would  be  to  marry  beneath  him — that  was  the  girl's 
phrase — l  to  marry  beneath  him  ' — so  he  engaged 
himself — also  in  secret — to  a  girl  above  him  in  social 
position ;  but  in  the  meantime  he  had  worked  him- 
self up  and  up  until  he  came  to  London  and  was  a 
sufficiently  important  person  to  get  me  to  engage  my- 
self to  him — in  secret  too — and — that's  the  whole 
story  the  young  lady  had  to  tell  only — yes,  I  forgot : 
before  he  met  her  he  had  actually  engaged  himself  to 
a  girl  in  Lynnthorpe — a  grocer's  daughter  in  the  town 
— Miss  Burden  found  that  out  also.  Was  there  ever 
anything  so  amusing  heard  since  the  world  began — 
such  a  comedy  of  courtships  !  He  had  been  gradu- 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  327 

ally  working  himself  up  through  the  whole  gamut  of 
the  social  scale  until  he  reached  the  dizzy  height  rep- 
resented by  me — me  !  But  there  is  a  sublimer  height 
even  than  me,  and  now  he  shall  have  his  chance  of 
reaching  it." 

"  And  we  have  always  thought  him  so  clever  !  " 

"  So  he  is.  But  the  cleverest  men  that  have  ever 
lived  have  had  their  weaknesses.  His  little  weakness 
seems  to  have  been  the  secret  engagement.  It  ap- 
pears that  he  has  never  been  able  to  resist  it.  He 
has  gone  from  one  girl  to  another  like  a  butterfly. 
He  will  marry  the  daughter  of  a  Duke  now." 

"You  believed  the  girl — Miss  Burden?  "  said  Am- 
ber in  a  tone  that  suggested  suspicion. 

Josephine  laughed  and  patted  her  hand. 

"  He  came  into  the  room  while  we  were  together," 
she  said. 

"  Oh  !  " 

"  He  had  not  been  to  see  me  since  Tuesday,  and 
to-day  is  Saturday  ;  he  thought  it  better  on  the  whole 
to  let  me  get  accustomed  to  the  situation  which  was 
the  natural  sequel  to  the  announcement  in  the  papers. 
But  he  came  to-day.  He  met  the  other  girl — .one  of 
the  other  girls — face  to  face.  You  never  saw  any- 
thing so  funny.  For  a  moment  I  thought  that  he 
would  make  the  attempt  to  strangle  her  as  the  villain 
on  the  stage  does.  But  he  did  nothing  of  the  sort. 
*  I  have  just  been  telling  Miss  West  that  the  day  you 
marry  her,  I  shall  bring  up  an  action  against  you  and 
give  the  leader  writers  of  the  Opposition  a  chance  of 


328  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

showing  off  their  cleverness  in  dealing  with  the  case 
of  Burden  v.  Clifton,'  said  she  quite  nicely.  And  he 
was  dumb — absolutely  dumb  !  *  But  Miss  West  has 
too  high  a  regard  for  Mr.  Clifton  to  precipitate  such 
an  event,'  said  I,  and  then  my  father  carne  into  the 
room." 

"  More  comedy  !  " 

"  I  felt  equal  to  playing  my  role.  He  looked  from 
me  to  Mr.  Clifton,  and  from  Mr.  Clifton  to  Miss 
Burden.  c  Oh,'  I  said, c  I  forgot  that  you  don't  know 
Miss  Burden,  papa.  This  is  my  father,  Miss  Burden. 
Miss  Burden  is  the  young  lady  whom  Mr.  Clifton 
promised  to  marry  four  years  ago.  It  is  a  nice  ques- 
tion, and  one  which  no  doubt  will  have  to  be  decided 
in  a  Court  of  law,  but  it  really  seems  to  me  that  he  is 
still  engaged  to  marry  Miss  Burden.  But  of  course 
there  were  other  girls  and  other  secret  engagements.' ' 

"  You  said  that  ?     How  neat !     And  your  father  ?  " 

"  He  said  l  Don't  be  a  fool,  Josephine.  What 
nonsense  is  this,  Clifton  ? '  'I  think  I  should  like 
five  minutes  alone  with  Miss  Burden  ;  I  think  I  could 
bripg  her  to  see  that  nothing  would  be  gained 

by '  'I  do  not  want  such  an  interview  with 

you,'  said  Miss  Burden.  1 1  am  here  and  if  Mr. 
West  wishes  to  ask  me  any  question — Mr.  West  or 
Miss  West — I  shall  answer  it  in  your  presence, 
Ernest.'  I  pitied  my  father — I  really  did.  '  Clifton,' 
said  he,  c  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  you  were  not  a 
free  man  when  you  made  your  proposal  to  my  daugh- 
ter ?'  1A  free  man?  that  girl  is  a  fool — an  utter 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  329 

fool  ! '  said  Mr.  Clifton.  l  Good  heavens  !  Because 
a  man  happens— psha  !  it  was  four  years  ago.  There 
is  nothing  criminal  in  the  business  !  '  l  Oh,  no,'  said 
I,  4  nothing  criminal — only  ridiculous ;  but  for  my 
part  I  have  no  intention  of  allowing  my  name  to  be 
associated  with  the  brackets  in  the  newspaper  reports 
enclosing  the  words  "  Great  laughter  in  the  court," 
and  I  cannot  believe  that  my  father  anticipates  such  a 
destiny  for  me.'  Then  my  father  did  a  foolish  thing. 
He  said,  '  Madam,  what  damages  do  you  hope  for  in 
this  matter  ?  Do  you  fancy  that  any  jury  would 
award  you  more  than  a  thousand  pounds  ?  That 
would  be  ridiculous.  But  at  the  same  time — I  have 
my  cheque-book  here — supposing  we  say  fifteen  hun- 
dred pounds  ? ' : 

"He  fancied  that  she  would  take  it  ?  Was  he 
deceived  by  the  ospreys  in  her  Parma-violet  hat,  do 
you  think  ?  " 

"  He  couldn't  have  been,  they  were  quite  simple. 
But  anyhow  the  girl  walked  straight  to  the  door  and 
was  out  before  any  one  could  say  a  word." 

"  How  good  !  " 

"  I  ran  after  her  and  caught  her  up  on  the  landing. 
I  kissed  her,  and — well,  I  didn't  think  it  worth  while 
returning  to  the  drawing-room.  But  when  I  was 
putting  on  my  hat  to  come  to  you,  my  father  met  me 
and  said,  '  Don't  you  fancy  that  because  this  business 
has  gone  astray  for  a  while  there  is  the  smallest  chance 
of  your  getting  my  consent  in  regard  to — to  that 
fellow  from  Australia.  Perhaps  it  is  as  well  for  us  to 


330  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

be  clear  of  Clifton — such  men  have  no  sense  of 
honour;  but  don't  you  think  for  a  moment  that  this 
Winwood  man — Clifton  told  me  all  about  him — will 
get  my  consent.'  So  you  see,  my  dear,  although  I 
have  escaped  from  Ernest  Clifton  .  .  .  oh,  how 
horribly  I  talked  when  you  came  to  see  me 
But  you  knew  that  I  cared  for  Pierce — you  knew  that 

I  had  given  him  my  promise — you  knew  that  he " 

And  at  this  point  Mr.  Pierce  Winwood  was  an- 
nounced and  Amber  Severn  rushed  past  him  as  he 
entered  the  room. 

****** 

"  My  dear  West,"  said  Sir  Creighton  Severn  when 
after  church  the  next  day,  he  found  himself  seated 
opposite  to  the  new  Minister  of  the  Annexation  De- 
partment in  Mr.  West's  library.  "  My  dear  West, 
so  old  a  friend  as  I  am  should  be  the  first  to  offer  you 
congratulations.  You  see  that  your  ambition  was 
not  the  foolish  impulse  that  so  many  people  in  the 
old  days  said  that  it  was.  You  had  the  stuff  in  you." 

"  I  knew  that  you  would  be  the  first,  my  dear 
Severn,"  said  the  new  Minister.  "  We  have  both  done 
very  well  for  ourselves  since  those  old  days — those 
cruel  old  days,  Severn.  Ah,  we  had  both  ambitions 
of  the  right  sort.  We  knew  how  to  make  the  most 
of  our  opportunities,  you  and  I.  Yes,  we  have  done 
pretty  well  for  ourselves." 

11  And  we  have  done  pretty  well  for  others  too — 
if  people  only  knew  it,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 

"  Yes,  yes,  the  world  is  the  happier  for  our  having 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  331 

lived  in  it — you  in  particular,  Severn — you  in  par- 
ticular. Your  inventions — where  are  they  going  to 
end  ?  that's  what  some  one  was  saying  to  me  the 
other  day — a  man  at  the  Admiralty — we  had  been 
hearing  the  result  of  the  trial  of  that  boat  of  yours. 
Ah,  you  are  fortunate,  Severn.  Your  work  is  recog- 
nised freely ;  whereas  the  labours  of  one  who  aspires 
to  be  thought  a  statesman — ah,  how  few  appreciate 
the  life  of  perpetual  self-sacrifice  which  we  are  com- 
pelled to  lead.  People  talk  of  the  sweets  of  office — 
sweets  ? — Do  you  know,  Severn,  I  feel  greatly  in- 
clined sometimes  to  relinquish  forever  all  this  worry 
of  political  life — all  this  noise — the  clamour — the — 
the  strepitum — that  is  the  word — the  strepitum — and 
settle  down  to  enjoy  the  life  which  is  nearest  to  my 
heart — the  home  life — the  home — the  hearth." 

"  Not  yet — not  yet,  my  friend,"  said  Sir  Creighton, 
shaking  his  head  sadly.  "You  are  not  your  own 
master  now.  Your  duty  may  be  an  onerous  one,  but 
there  are  too  few  statesmen  in  England  for  you  to 
think  of  retiring  yet  awhile." 

"Well,  perhaps  one  should  not  look  at  such  a 
matter  from  the  standpoint  of  one's  private  feelings. 
You  do  not  see  so  much  of  me  nowadays  as  you 
once  did,  Severn  ;  if  you  did  you  would  know  that 
the  home — the  hearth — ah — ah  !  " 

"  We  do  not  see  so  much  of  each  other  ;  but  our 
children — our  girls,  you  know  that  they  are  inseparable 
—West,  you  are  the  father  of  a  girl  whom  I  have 
come  to  understand,  and  to  understand  such  a  nature 


332  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

as  hers  is  to  love  her.  I  love  her  as  I  do  my  own 
child ;  and  I  am  here  to  talk  to  you  about  her." 

"  Ah,  Severn,  she  is  a  good  girl — a  noble  girl,  but 
— well,  frankly,  I  am  rather  glad  that  this  affair  with 
Clifton  has  come  to  an  end.  It  will  be  years  before 
Clifton  is  anything  but  the  merest  wire-puller — a 
paltry  provincial  sort  of  jobbing  jerrymander — that 
was — he  will  be — not  without  his  uses,  of  course — 
those  organisms  have  their  uses  to  us ;  but  I  think 
that  my  daughter  has  every  right  to  look  for  some  one 
— some  one,  in  short,  more  in  her  own  rank  in  life. 
You  heard,  of  course,  that  Clifton  had  been  a  fool — 
that  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  entertain  any 
longer  the  idea  of " 

"  I  saw  Josephine  yesterday.  I  am  quite  of  your 
way  of  thinking  in  this  matter.  Clifton  behaved 
badly  from  the  first — inducing  her  to  do  an  underhand 
thing — I  know  that  her  better  nature  recoiled  from  it. 
I  cannot  understand  how  you  ever  came  to  give  your 
consent,  West." 

"  Well,  you  see,  my  dear  Severn,  I  believed  that 
she  loved  him,  and  a  girl's  heart — ah,  Severn,  Severn, 
when  the  prospect  of  one's  daughter's  happiness " 

"  That  is  what  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about,  West 
— her  future  happiness- — and  yours." 

"  If  you  are  going  to  talk  to  me  about  that  man 
from  Australia — or  is  it  New  Zealand  ? — whom  she 
fancies  she  loves,  you  may  spare  yourself  the  trouble, 
my  dear  friend — I  decline  to  discuss  a  man  so  obvi- 
ously— flagrantly  ineligible." 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  333 

"  I  have  found  out  a  good  deal  about  him  during 
the  past  month,  and  I  have  heard  nothing  except 
what  is  good." 

"  Good — good — what  signifies  goodness — I  mean, 
of  course,  that  my  daughter  is  now  in  a  very  different 
position  from  that  she  occupied  six  months  ago.  The 
best  families  in  the  land  might  receive  her  with  open 
arms.  But  a  Colonial — well,  of  course,  they  did  very 
well  in  the  war,  the  Colonials,  and  the  mother  country 
is  proud  of  them — yes,  quite  proud  of  them.  But  for 
my  daughter  to  marry  a  man  who  does  not  know  his 
own  father " 

"  I  know  all  about  his  father,  though  he  does  not." 

"  I  don't  want  to  know  anything,  West.  His 
father  may  have  been  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
for  all  I  care ;  but  the  chances  are  that  he  was  a  con- 
vict— or  a  descendant  of  convicts." 

"You  have  not  guessed  very  wide  of  the  mark; 
his  father  was  a  convict." 

"  What ;  and  you  are  here  to  suggest  that — that — 
good  lord,  Severn,  are  you  mad — oh,  you  must  be  mad  ? " 

"I  do  not  consider  that  he  is  anything  the  worse 
for  being  the  son  of  a  convict,  West.  There  is  al- 
ways the  possibility  of  a  convict  being  innocent." 

"  Oh,  they  all  affirm  their  innocence,  of  course. 
Now,  that  is  all  I  want  to  hear  about  either  father  or 
son.  You  will  stay  to  lunch,  I  hope — oh,  yes,  you 
must  stay  to  lunch.  The  Marquis  may  drop  in  after- 
wards ;  his  son  is  certainly  coming.  You  know  Lord 
JLullworth — a  promising  young  fellow,  Severn — quite 


334  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

promising.  Come  upstairs;  Lady  Gwendolen  will 
be  pleased." 

"  One  moment,  my  dear  West.  I  happen  to  know 
that  the  convict  father  of  Pierce  Winwood,  as  he 
calls  himself,  was  innocent  of  the  crime  for  which  he 
suffered." 

"  Then  comfort  the  son  with  that  information. 
He  will  be  glad  to  believe  it,  I  am  confident." 

"Shall  I  add  to  that  information  the  name  of  the 
criminal  on  whose  behalf  he  suffered  ?  " 

"You  may  add  the  names  of  all  the  heroes  of  the 
Newgate  Calendar,  if  you  please,  my  dear  friend." 

"  I  will  not  offer  him  so  interesting  a  catalogue. 
But  come  with  me — I  have  taken  the  liberty  of 
bringing  him  here  with  me :  he  is  upstairs — I  will 
give  him  the  name  of  the  real  criminal  in  your  pres- 
ence and  in  the  presence  of  the  Marquis  and  the 
Marquis's  son  and  also  present  him  with  the  proofs, 
which  I  have  in  my  pocket,  that  I  have  not  made  a 
mistake." 

Sir  Creighton  took  a  step  towards  the  door. 

Mr.  West  did  not  move.  His  jaw  had  fallen. 
He  had  grasped  the  back  of  a  chair. 

The  gong  sounded  for  luncheon  filling  up  the  long 
pause  with  its  hum. 

"  For  God's  sake — for  God's  sake,"  whispered  the 
Cabinet  Minister. 

"  I  tell  you  the  truth,  West,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 
"  The  son  of  Richard  Gaintree,  the  man  who  was  in 
your  father's  works  with  myself  and  with  you — the 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  335 

man  who  in  that  strange  way  when  we  thought  he 
was  at  the  point  of  death  confessed  to  the  crime 
which  you  committed  and  so  saved  you — the  man 
whom  you  saw  go  cheerfully  to  prison,  without  speak- 
ing a  word  to  save  him — that  man  is  the  father  of 
Pierce  Winwood  as  certain  as  we  stand  here." 

Mr.  West  gazed  at  Sir  Creighton  Severn  for  some 
minutes,  and  then  with  an  articulation  that  was  half  a 
cry  and  half  a  groan,  dropped  into  the  chair  in  front 
of  him,  and  bowed  his  head  down  to  his  hands  on  the 
table. 

For  a  long  time  his  visitor  did  not  speak — did  not 
stir.  At  last  he  went  to  him  and  laid  his  hand  on 
his  shoulder. 

" '  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way,' — you  remem- 
ber that  hymn  at  the  Chapel  in  the  old  days,  Julian  ?  " 
he  said  in  a  low  voice.  "  Though  we  have  drifted 
away  from  the  chapel,  we  can  still  recognise  the 
truth  of  that  line.  I  know  that  for  years  you  have 
thought  and  thought  if  it  might  be  possible  for  you 
to  redeem  that  one  foolish  act  of  your  life — to  re- 
deem your  act  of  cowardice  in  sending  that  man  to 
suffer  in  your  place.  Well,  now,  by  the  mysterious 
working  of  Providence,  the  chance  is  offered  to  you." 

"And  I  will  accept  it — I  will  accept  it  as  I  did 
the  offer  of  Richard  Gaintree,"  cried  West,  clutching 
at  his  friend's  arm.  "Thank  God  I  can  do  it — I  can 
do  it.  But  he  need  not  know — the  son  need  not 
know — you  say  he  does  not  know  ?  " 

"He    knows    the    story — the    bare    story,  but   his 


336  ACCORDING  TO  PLATO 

father  hid  the  names  from  him.  He  need  never 
know  more  than  he  does  now." 

"  Send  them  to  me — send  them  to  me,  quick, 
Severn,  quick — I  may  die  before  I  have  accomplished 
the  act  of  restitution." 

Sir  Creighton  put  out  his  hand,  the  other  man  put 
his  own  right  hand  into  it  for  a  moment. 

Sir  Creighton  went  upstairs  to  the  drawing-room 
where  Josephine  and  Pierce  were  sitting  with  Lord 
Lullworth  and  Amber.  Lady  Gwendolen  was  still 
in  her  dressing-room. 

Josephine  started  up  at  his  entrance.  She  looked 
eagerly — enquiringly  at  him. 

"  He  is  in  his  study.  He  wants  to  see  you  both. 
Dear  child,  you  have  my  congratulations — and  you 
too,  Winwood." 

Josephine  was  in  Sir  Creighton's  arms  before  he 
had  finished  speaking. 

"  We  are  starving.  What  has  happened  ?  "  cried 
Amber  with  some  awe  in  her  voice,  when  Josephine 
and  Pierce  had  disappeared. 

"  The  time-fuse  has  burnt  itself  down — that's  all," 
said  her  father.  "  Listen  :  you  can  almost  hear  Mr. 
West  telling  his  daughter  that  his  fondest  wish  has 
always  been  for  her  happiness,  and  that  he  is  ready  to 
sacrifice  all  his  aspirations  and  ambitions  in  order  that 
she  may  marry  the  man  whom  she  loves.  That  is 
what  he  is  saying  just  now." 

And,  sure  enough,  that  was  exactly  what  Mr.  West 
was  saying  at  that  moment. 


ACCORDING  TO  PLATO  337 

"  But  the  time-fuse  ?  "  said  Amber. 

"  Time-fuse — the  time-fuse,"  said  Lord  Lullworth. 
"Ah,  that  reminds  me — well,  I  may  as  well  get  it 
over  at  once,  Sir  Creighton.  The  fact  is  that  I — I 
have — well,  I  gave  myself  a  time-fuse  of  six  months 
to  fall  in  love  with  your  daughter,  but  the  explosion 
has  come  a  good  deal  sooner  than  I  expected.  She 
says  that  she  thinks  that  she  may  come  to  think 
about  me  as  I  do  of  her,  in  about  four  months." 

"  Oh,  less  than  four  months,  now,"  cried  Amber. 
11  It  was  four  months  half  an  hour  ago.  Half  an 
hour  of  the  time-fuse  has  burnt  away.  And  it's  not 
the  real  Severn  time-fuse,  I  know,  for  I've  no  con- 
fidence that  the  climax  may  not  be  reached  at  any 
time." 

"  You  are  a  pair  of  young  fools,"  said  Sir  Creighton. 
"And  yet — well,  I  don't  know.  You  may  be  the 
two  wisest  people  in  the  world." 

"  Great  Queen  of  Sheba  !  we  can't  be  so  bad  as  all 
that,"  said  Lord  Lullworth. 


THE    END. 


A     000115607     4 


